


The Worship of a Dying Atheist

by talboys



Series: Peter Wimsey in Present Day [1]
Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, all good things really, and some Mycroftian manipulations, and some precious jewels that have gone missing, and some ptsd, in the interest of fair warnings, lots of sass though, there is some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talboys/pseuds/talboys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft once claimed that John wasn’t haunted by the war. How very wrong he was. </p><p>Other men, too, are haunted by this war.</p><p> </p><p>*While this story borrows characters from Dorothy L. Sayers, no previous knowledge of the Lord Peter universe is necessary to understand what goes on; the setting is very firmly in BBC Sherlock. If, though, you want to know more about some of these characters I couldn’t recommend Sayers more highly (no, seriously, what are you waiting for…go read them!).</p><p>*I have, though, in the style of Lord Peter, adapted the title from John Donne’s “Farewell to Love”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s really good to see you again, mate.” John took a sip of beer defensively; his glass protectively between himself and the awkward sentiment from Ben Hardy. They were two drinks into this monthly unit reunion of sorts. At least, John thought it happened monthly…it felt like he’d ignored an invitation every month for a while.

“You said you were living with a friend of a friend now, yeah?” Bill Poole asked.

“Right, yeah, a friend from Barts set us up. Two months ago.”

John regretted the phrasing as soon as he said it. ‘Set us up’? It sounded like a date. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but the other men seemed not to notice either his phrasing or his awkwardness. Thank God Sherlock wasn’t here – he would have noticed and _that_ would have been awkward.

John mentally braced himself, feeling his adrenalin levels begin to rise. He took a deep breath, trying to force them back down. There was nothing dangerous here. Just five normal men in an average pub having a few drinks after work. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“…it’s good to start being other people again,” Bill was saying, but John had missed whatever the first part of his comment was, so he just nodded agreeably and took another sip of his beer. 

“Exactly, speaking of which, has anyone heard about Wimsey? At all?” Steve Powell chipped in.

“No, nothing since he got out,” Bill responded, shaking his head.

 _Wimsey. Wimsey…_ the name rang a bell in the back of John’s brain. It was a name he knew and yet couldn’t remember. Someone in his unit? No, he remembered those names. A former patient maybe?

“I’d heard he had a breakdown a few months ago,” James McHale added uncertainly.

“Sorry, what happened to him again?” John asked, slightly irritated that he still couldn’t place the name.

The other four men looked at him incredulously from their places around the table. James glanced at Steve nervously. Without their voices, the muted conversations of the other pub-goers seemed absurdly loud.

_What the hell?_

John gave a half-laugh to break the silence. It came out brittle and forced. “You can tell me, don’t worry. I’m not going to break or something.”

“Well mate,” Steve said after a moment more of strained silence, “I don’t know how much you remember, but he was caught in the attack at Bastion with you.”

John felt so much as saw all of the men at the table look at him to see how he would handle talking about the attack on Camp Bastion that invalided him out. The drinks, the forced-casual conversation, hell even Sherlock he could cope with. But this, the scrutiny combined with sympathy was one thing he could not.

“I can talk about it, I just can’t remember everyone’s name for fuck’s sake.”

Ben hurried to talk, relieved that they could. “Well, strictly speaking, you wouldn’t have known him that well. He wasn’t in our unit; he was a Major somewhere else.”

John nodded encouragingly even though he still couldn’t remember who Wimsey – _Major_ Wimsey – was.

“Anyway, no one actually knows how it happened, but he ended up _under_ half of that helicopter that went down.”

John frowned. “Hang on, how did he make it out of that?”

The other four men shrugged and shook their heads.

“I don’t think anyone knew he was under it at first,” Bill said. “I’m pretty sure that that one sergeant found him, isn’t that right?” He looked to Steve for confirmation, who nodded.

“It was definitely Bunter. Yeah, it was after you…Well, he was pretty fucked. They had to send him to Germany for his head.”

John winced in commiseration. While his injury had been serious, it had been treatable at the field hospital on the base. Evacuation to Germany was for the really serious cases that were beyond the scope of what could be done at the base. Neurological trauma, John was willing to bet. Something terrifically delicate and very serious. You don’t end up _under_ the pieces of a crashing helicopter without it. And Wimsey’s name was starting to become more familiar – maybe he’d seen it on an injury list somewhere?

“He was a funny one, but I’m sure he’ll pull through,” Steve said with finality. Then, clearly wanting the conversation to return to the relative safety of small talk, he turned to James and asked after his new girlfriend.

John sighed and tried to finish his beer.

 

\--

 

_The air was heavy: smoke, dust, and a sharpness that John knew was from the heat and friction of machinery._

_He was running, legs pounding the tamped sand._

_Helicopter down! Helicopter down! The slight reverb from the speakers echoed between his ears, rattling around his head. Or was that the shockwave from where the helicopter met the ground?_

_His brain was running faster than his legs. What sort of triage would a helicopter crash need? Were there survivors? Please let there be survivors. Helicopter down!_

_He struggled to breathe, he breath coming in wheezing heaves around the thickening smoke. A surreal orange glow from the fire danced between the particulate in the air._

_ZHWIP!_

_What the fuck was that?_

_ZHWIP! ZHWIP!_

_His face hit the ground before he knew that he was going down. Spitting out the gallons of sand he seemed to have swallowed, he crawled for cover, choking for breath around all of the sand and all of the smoke. Hand over hand. Hand over hand._

_ZHWIP! ZHUCK._

_Screaming. That had to be Andrews, fuck. Hand over hand. Must get cover before you can do anything. Hot metal met his fingers, not sand. Part of the helicopter? Good enough._

_John crawled into a sitting position, huddled behind whatever was miraculously on the ground in front of him. He was still breathing sand. Orange sand. Glowing sand. Shouts and bullets were arguing in his head. He willed his hand down to his waist and his fingers found the scratchy nylon. His trauma kit. He was still useful._

_A shape on the ground through the smoke. A body? He had to see._

_Hands and knees. Crawling. Low profile._

_Slowly, too slow. Hurry up._

_Zip zip zip farther away._

_ZHUCK!_

_Searing, agonizing shock of nothingness in his chest. Darkness rushing in from all sides. Please, God, let me live…_

JOHN!

 

 

John’s eyes wrenched open as he gasped down oxygen as though he were still struggling to breath around clouds of sand and smoke. It felt as though he were trapped under something heavy, though rationally he knew that it was just the blanket that he was certainly twisted up in. Was his blanket suddenly made of lead? He could smell the smoke still – a phantom of it tickled the back of his throat and made him want to cough. He could also smell the faint, sweetly crisp laundry detergent that he had borrowed from Mrs. Hudson the week before.

Deep breaths to fight down the rushes of anxiety and adrenalin. _In and back down._

_In and back down._

_In and back down._

His breath sounded as though he had a severe case of pneumonia: raspy, rattling, shallow, and completely uneven.

Absurdly, he began to laugh. A snort at first, at the sheer hilarity that his abused brain would jump first to medicine, and then weak giggling in the moments between exhaling and inhaling. His eyes stung and watered and John felt the wetness on his cheeks more than being particularly aware of the tears actually falling from his eyes in this weird state of adrenalin-hysteria.

And then, through all of that, John heard a noise.

His body instinctively froze, although his chest continued to heave noisily as his pulmonary system fought to get back into a normal rhythm. It had been a quiet noise, the faintest shuffle of a deliberately slow step on the carpet. John might have missed it if his senses hadn’t been haywire and oddly acute to potential threats.

_Oh please no._

As John willed his brain and mouth to produce coherent words, Sherlock spoke, hardly above a whisper, “John?”

“Mmkyea?” John swallowed hard, hoping his diction would improve if he convinced his brain that he no longer had a mouthful of sand. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Sherlock was silent again.

John tried to find some anger in his addled emotions: _Didn’t know what to say to this, did he? No file in that brain for how to comfort your panicking flatmate_ , he thought darkly.

“What are you doing?” he finally managed.

To his chagrin, though not his surprise, it came out more fragile and wavering than angry.

“Was it the attack?” Sherlock asked, his voice still quiet and somehow soothing and slightly hesitant at the same time.

John felt as though he was deflating somehow; all of the air that his lungs had worked so hard to pull into his body somehow seemed to have left, leaving John feeling like a deadweight. This was too much; he couldn’t feign anger, too. Carefully, he lay back against his hot pillow, scrunching his eyes shut to clear the residual tears.

“Please go.”

There was no movement from near the door where Sherlock seemed to be standing.

_Why are you still here? Please leave. Please don’t stay for this. Please just go._

Sherlock seemed somehow to sense John’s thoughts and left, gently closing the door behind him. John exhaled in relief at being alone to bring himself back under control. Though, John noticed suddenly, Sherlock hadn’t latched the door. There was a small thread of light poking around the edge of the jamb that was so bright that it seemed blinding. John buried the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to block out the light and push the remnants of the dream from his head.

There was a humming in his ears and John shook his head to clear it, but the humming continued. Stars burst in front of John’s eyes as he moved his hands to pull at his ears to clear them. The humming kept on but, once the stars faded, John was in complete darkness. Sherlock must have turned out the light downstairs. John felt his forehead relax back into smoothness; he hadn’t realized he’d been frowning.

The humming changed pitch and John belatedly realized that it wasn’t humming at all; it was a violin being very carefully and quietly played somewhere in the flat.

John’s ear for classical music was rusty, but this was familiar and he began to breathe along to the melody, allowing Pachelbel’s _Canon_ to cover the remaining fragments of the dream with something heavy and warm.

_Funny how something so sweet could have the same name as a weapon._

Ten minutes later, the violin sighed into silence and John’s sleep was blessedly dreamless. 


	2. Chapter 2

When John woke up next, sunlight was seeping through the curtains. It wasn’t as excruciating as the light from under the door last night, but it still hurt. He kept his eyes shut and wondered what time it was.

He guessed that his alarm hadn’t gone off (had he not set it? Did Sherlock turn it off?). It wasn’t early morning because the light was too bright…but all light would probably be too bright right now. John frowned in frustration. If he were Sherlock he could probably deduce the time to the minute based on the angle of the shadows or something else ridiculous and clever.

John mentally took stock of his body, wondering how miserable it would feel to get up. His shoulder twinged a little from tensing all of his muscles to crawl around in the dream. His head felt too heavy for his neck and his eyes felt as though they were being pushed forward out of their sockets. His throat was scratchy, as though he really had swallowed sand the night before.

He swallowed painfully. Today felt like a good day to stay in bed and sleep off what was essentially a hangover.

But that would be letting it win.

Cursing the fact that he couldn’t fight his own stubbornness, John opened his eyes and sat up gingerly.

Nothing exploded. No one died. A little light-headedness from the blood rush, but actually not too bad. Feeling slightly more confident in his body’s abilities, John pushed off the duvet and stood up. When nothing to force him back to bed happened, John slowly went downstairs.

Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. Asleep? Out? John didn’t know and frankly didn’t feel like checking. He felt oddly relieved that he was alone; the last thing he wanted was for his dreams – really just the one _occasional_ dream – to become the subject of Sherlock’s newest scientific experiment. It would be worse than all of the pity from strangers he’d gotten back when he still had the limp. John shivered involuntarily as he turned the kettle on.  

Tea and toast felt like it would be properly restorative and – John checked the clock – it was ten thirty in the morning: still breakfast time. With forced optimism, he rescued the marmalade in the refrigerator from next to a glass jar filled with something disturbingly foamy labeled “Sample 6, Week 2. DON’T TOUCH, JOHN.”

With toast made and tea brewed, John took his mug and plate to the sofa, where he sat, careful not to spill his tea. His brain cast around for something to focus on, but there was nothing. The flat was quiet and still without Sherlock doing something, even sulking. Even though he was glad to be alone, things were slightly more boring without Sherlock’s immediate presence.  

John reached for his laptop with a sigh; the Internet would have to do for a distraction.

\--

The internet wasn’t working as well as he had wanted it to. Some celebrity couple in Hollywood that John didn’t care about had announced their divorce the night before and every news source – even the serious ones – was running multiple stories on it. There was apparently nothing else of any importance happening in the world, John thought rather sourly as he took a bite of toast.

He opened up his blog and realized that he had nothing new to write about; he had already written up Sherlock’s last case the week before. There weren’t any new comments and, though he couldn’t remember the hit count from the last time he checked, he was willing to bet that it hadn’t increased either.

John thought it was funny that no one in his unit, particularly the ones he’d seen the night before, had apparently thought to google his name. If they had performed a basic search of his name plus “London” his blog would have appeared on the first page. And then his flatmate wouldn’t have just been thought of as “a friend of a friend” – they would have wanted to know all about the vigilante detective with the strange name.

In retrospect, John was very glad that no one from last night had thought to do so. Better to keep the talk there to new girlfriends and the occasional war story.

_Major Wimsey_. The frustratingly mysterious name from the pub jumped back into his head. John laughed softly and typed “Wimsey + London” into his Google homepage.

_That should be an easy mystery to solve_.

To John’s surprise, the first search result was a lengthy Wikipedia article about the history of the Wimsey family which he opened curiously. The family name, he read, went all the way back to a knight who had fought with King Richard. Maybe Major Wimsey was related to a branch in the family.

John scrolled down to the bottom of the article to see who in the family was alive and active. Apparently the family title was the Duke of Denver, which didn’t ring any bells in John’s rather vague memories of aristocratic names and titles. The current Duke was living a comfortably middle-aged life with his wife and two children. Gerald Wimsey had no history of military service and, as far as John could see, no real history of doing much of anything other than being a below-the-radar-of-the-press aristocrat. He did have two children, though: George and Winifred.

_Who on earth would name their daughter Winifred these days?_

John clicked on the Duke’s son’s name – George Wimsey – to open up his three sentence Wikipedia biography. He was a member of the RAF. A helicopter pilot. _Perfect_. _Got him._ John broke into a satisfied smile at having found his mystery man.

On second thought, though, something felt wrong about it.

John read the sparse biography again before it struck him: there was no rank of “Major” in the RAF. George Wimsey couldn’t be the Major Wimsey from last night. Furthermore, John thought, looking at the date of birth, George Wimsey was too young to have such a high rank; only 25.

John clicked back to the Wimsey family page again, disappointed. Looking at the current Duke’s family, John felt surprised that the Duke would let his only son join the RAF rather than, say, take a cushy job at an investment bank. Wasn’t that what most the aristocratic sons did these days? Maybe this was a William and Harry effect, making it cool to be a military man rather than a solicitor or something equally boring and well-paid.

Maybe the Duke had younger siblings, John wondered. Maybe that’s where Major Wimsey was.

John clicked around until he opened the page for the previous Duke. Sure enough, there were three children listed: Gerald, the current Duke, Peter, and Mary.

Feeling hopeful, John clicked on Peter’s name and was disappointed to see that, apart from his date of birth and attendance of Eton and Oxford, there was no biographical information listed.

Frustrated, John typed “Peter Wimsey” into Google, but nothing relevant came up other than the unhelpful Wikipedia entry that he’d already read.

John sighed and slumped back into the sofa. Maybe it wasn’t going to be that easy to find out who Major Wimsey was.

\--

Somewhere deeply into a spiral of inane but distracting videos, John glanced up to see Sherlock standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Morning, Sherlock.”

“Afternoon, actually.”

John rubbed his face tiredly. Was it afternoon already?

Silence. To John, it felt strangely awkward and he hastened to fill it.

“Sorry about last night, if I disturbed you or anything…” he trailed off, waiting to see how Sherlock responded.

“It’s fine.”

“Right. Well, I think I’ll go out. Fresh air.”

John stood up from the sofa and stretched, noticing thankfully that his shoulder wasn’t quite as tight as it had been earlier. 

When he was halfway up the stairs, Sherlock spoke again.

“I don’t think you should see those men again.”

John stopped, confused. “What?”

Sherlock sounded incredulous, as though he couldn’t believe that he had to explain such an obvious statement. “The men from your unit. Last night. You have no nightmares for three months, you see them, and that very night you have a nightmare about being attacked.”

Flustered, John opened with the offensive. “Where the hell do you get off telling me about my personal life?”

Sherlock didn’t respond.

“They are my friends, Sherlock, and I have every right to see them whenever I please.”

“John, even you cannot deny such obvious cause and effect,” Sherlock sighed.  

“Cause and effect. Cause and effect, seriously? You can’t test that! It’s correlated at best.” John felt a smug sense of pride through his anger at being able to catch Sherlock using incorrect terminology.

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. “Longitudinal study. I don’t need to test anything.”

“What?” Confusion, surprise, and anger in John’s head mixed to form something volatile. “A study. And I’m your _subject_?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, John, but the walls are extremely thin. To perform such a study I did not even need to leave my own room,” Sherlock said dismissively.  

“I hope you know how creepy that sounds.”

Sherlock had the grace (was it grace? John couldn’t tell) to look somewhat abashed. “Poor phrasing, perhaps, but the principle stands nonetheless. You seem to have been deeply affected by your encounter with these _friends_ and this has expressed itself in the reappearance of a recurring nightmare. Don’t you agree?”

“How the hell do you even know I _have_ recurring dreams? That could have been a one off for all you know.”

Sherlock raised his eyebrow skeptically, and John cursed himself for confirming that it was a recurring dream. “Please. You were injured in a traumatic attack on your base. It only makes sense that your sleeping brain would want to revisit it.”

John ground his teeth and decided that he’d had quite enough of this conversation. He couldn’t think of any comeback to Sherlock’s final statement, so he went upstairs to retrieve a proper jumper and shoes. On his way back down, stomping a bit more than was necessary, he noticed that Sherlock was still standing in the same place, watching him thoughtfully.

Shaking his head exasperatedly, John slammed the door behind him and went out to clear his head.

\--

Sherlock took a few steps into the living room and watched John storm off down Baker Street (hands thrust in his pockets; angry, but he’d get over it) through the window. Certain that he would be gone for at least forty five minutes, Sherlock settled down into the sofa and opened John’s laptop.

Sherlock, unbeknownst to John, had been awake all morning listening and thinking. He’d heard John get out of bed and walk downstairs more cautiously than usual; had heard him make tea and toast. And then he’d heard him sit down and not move for a long time while occasionally typing on his keyboard.

The typing had been too sporadic to be a blog post (besides, there was no case for John to write up), and had been too infrequent to have been a live chat with some other individual. A _friend_.

So John must have been searching for something, rather than just browsing. Foolishly, John never thought to clear his browsing history, so Sherlock opened it and scrolled past the hour of videos (too random of an assortment to have been the subject of a specific search) until he found what he was looking for.

He frowned. Why had John been running a search on the Wimsey family? Furthermore, why had he only been using Wikipedia as a source?

Sherlock tutted at John’s failings in research methodology as he opened the windows that John had opened previously. Only the men and only those of the right age to be in the military currently or in the very recent past. Interesting.

Sherlock knew vaguely of the Wimsey family: the family’s seat was Duke’s Denver and that there had been a quickly hushed media frenzy six years previously when the young heir, George, had crashed his sports car into a quiet country cemetery while drunk.

He also knew that Peter Wimsey, who appeared to be quite wary of having any details about himself online, had been at Balliol with Mycroft.

Interesting. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Ah, Sherlock, do please sit down,” Mycroft said with a strained smile.

Sherlock smirked as he sat across from Mycroft’s purposefully somewhat underwhelming desk, imagining the flurry of panicked texts from the two secretaries that he’d charmingly bullied his way past on Mycroft’s mobile.

“Do shut the door.” Mycroft spoke over Sherlock’s head, at the unnamed and nearly invisible assistant outside, who did so.

“Now, why don’t you tell me what it is that brings you to my office, unannounced, on a Thursday afternoon?”

Although it physically pained Sherlock to ask for Mycroft’s help, he was at least going to make it equally as painful for Mycroft. And, unfortunately, he really did need Mycroft’s help in finding out more about Peter Wimsey as Peter was either clever enough to hide virtually his entire existence from the internet or, as Sherlock suspected, he worked for someone that clever. Mycroft.

“I was just here to chat about some of your old university friends,” Sherlock answered innocently.

Mycroft smiled and assumed an air of great patience. “Then why don’t you contact Balliol – I’m sure they’ll put you in touch.”

“I rather doubt that they’ll give me information about government agents.”

“Oh, and you thought I would?”

Sherlock could practically see Mycroft square his shoulders in preparation for negotiations and calculate what he’d want in return for various levels of information.

“Now, let’s see,” Mycroft drawled slowly. “What information could you want about old university friends of mine who are apparently employed by a more secretive branch of the government?”

“An address,” Sherlock said simply.

Mycroft’s eyebrows raised in well-studied surprise. “An address?”

Sherlock took a moment to tamp his pride down further before saying, “Yes, the current residence of Peter Wimsey.”

“As I’m sure you know, Sherlock, correspondence addressed to Duke’s Denver will reach Lord Peter.”

“His _private_ residence, Mycroft.”

Sherlock felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket. _That would be John, arriving back from his walk wanting to talk, and finding the flat empty._

“Now, why should I breach a _friend’s_ well-earned privacy?” Mycroft feigned injured surprise, as though he couldn’t fathom compromising anyone’s personal information.

Sherlock wanted to scream, “ _So that I can help John!”_ but knew better than to give away his hand quite so early. Instead, he answered as dismissively as he could manage: “It’s for a case I’m working on.”

“No investigation of Lord Peter would occur without my knowledge of it. Try again.”

Mycroft twirled an expensive pen in his fingers, clearly enjoying himself.

Sherlock remained silent; if Mycroft was going to have such a good time, then he could do the work.

Mycroft’s passive aggressive smile faded somewhat. “Very well, then. A very urgent need to get into contact with Lord Peter has arisen, causing you to _personally_ come and see me, rather than simply text. As you are not in the habit of stopping by casually and John is not with you, then this _urgent_ matter is something that John would prefer you not be involved in. All right so far, I think?”

Sherlock smiled stonily back at Mycroft’s unnecessary break to gloat.

He continued, “And as you wish to know about Peter Wimsey, then this is about John’s military career? Yes, and as John does not routinely speak about his time in the service, then some crisis has occurred. And you, who have become just as loyal to him as he has to you, sentimentally wish to resolve it for him.”

Sherlock felt a small spark of fury at Mycroft ignite in his chest. He had, of course, asked for this by walking into this office in need of information. But it burned to know that Mycroft could read his emotions so easily and then trivialize them so easily through well-practiced passive aggression.

Mycroft seemed slightly taken aback at Sherlock’s lack of response to his, quite frankly, baiting statements.

He sighed and opened the formal negotiations in just the way that Sherlock had expected: “I’ll give you his address in exchange for your assistance with an issue of mine.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to raise his eyebrows passive aggressively. “What sort of issue?”

“Lord Attenbury’s emeralds have gone missing for the second time.”

“A jewel theft? From someone who has _lost_ them before? Don’t we have Scotland Yard for this very purpose?” he scoffed.

Mycroft’s smile was back in place. “The last time the emeralds went missing, it nearly became a diplomatic crisis with India. Far too delicate a situation for Scotland Yard alone.”

“You just don’t want to travel to India.”

“And this is why you could never become a diplomat; your negotiation skills are severely lacking. One should never insult the man giving you classified information,” he said, delicately scolding.

“The address of an old friend of yours is by no means classified, Mycroft,” Sherlock replied, annoyed at Mycroft’s (expected) inflation of the importance of his information.  

“It is when they are on indefinite leave and have been for six months,” Mycroft replied smoothly.

Sherlock blinked in surprise.

“We take post-traumatic stress disorder very seriously now, you know. Not like the days of shell shock and institutionalization.”

Mycroft looked triumphant, pleased to have been able to pull information that Sherlock hadn’t expected into their negotiations. Sherlock felt as though buzzers and flashing lights were going off in his head. John was invalided out six months previously. John was clearly suffering from a mild form of PTSD. This _had_ to be the connection. But why had John been looking for it? Why now? What had those men in the pub said to him?

Sherlock settled his features into neutrality. “I’ll take your case.”

“I thought you might.”

Mycroft opened his desk drawer and pulled out a slim envelope, which he held out for Sherlock to take. “Notes about the last incident.”

Sherlock tucked the envelope into his coat without looking at it. “The address.”

For a moment, Mycroft looked almost disappointed at having to give it out at all, but recovered his features quickly. “Peter and his flatmate can be found at 110A Piccadilly.”

Sherlock stood to leave when Mycroft spoke again, rather offhandedly. “I trust you’re aware that in your sentimental rush to fix John’s problems, you could do more damage than good.”

Sherlock swallowed his anger at being called _sentimental_ again. “Yes.”

“Very well, do get back to me about Lord Attenbury.”

Sherlock turned and left in a slightly over-dramatic swirl of coat.

Once out of the purposely nondescript building that housed Mycroft and his various minions, Sherlock pulled his mobile from his pocket to check what John had to say.

_I’m back. Where are you?_

Sherlock checked the time stamp on the text – John had taken fifteen minutes more on his walk than Sherlock had anticipated. There must be something that John had wrestled with and probably wouldn’t forgive him for. Sherlock wondered which of the various things he had said (or done…perhaps intruding on his nightmare wasn’t going to be forgiven) was going to be the chosen one.

As soon as he was safely in a cab, Sherlock texted back:

_On my way back to Baker St. New case._

\--

John came back through the door of 221B Baker Street with cheeks rosy from the cold and a much calmer state of mind.

He’d spent his hour wandering about rather aimlessly thinking about what Sherlock had said to him. He supposed he could forgive him for conducting a “study” on his sleeping habits. The walls _were_ thin after all and Sherlock, who observed so much more of the world than anyone else John knew, could hardly fail to notice pacing or violent tossing and turning in the middle of the night.

John wondered, his stomach clenching, what sort of noise he must have made last night that had actually made Sherlock intervene and wake him up.  

The one thing that John had decided not to forgive was Sherlock’s attempt to dictate who he should spend his time with. Maybe Sherlock was right (John was willing to concede that) and maybe talking about the attack had brought back the dream (the worst it had been since before he’d moved in with Sherlock).

But, John resolved, no matter how right Sherlock may have been, he had absolutely no right to tell him who he should and should not see. Part of him (the vindictive and petty part) was tempted to text Bill to grab a pint just to spite Sherlock. His mobile was in his hand and the text was written out, but John deleted it with a sigh. In all honesty he didn’t want to spend any more time with his old unit than he felt was socially obligatory.

To John’s surprise, Sherlock didn’t seem to be in the flat. It was silent and nothing seemed to have changed from when John had left the hour before. John wished that he were there so that they could start the day over without the intrusion of nightmares and old army mates.

_Where has that mad bastard gone to now?_

John looked at the mobile from in his hand but there were, as he remembered, no unread texts. John hesitated for a moment before sending: _I’m back. Where are you?_

Feeling restless, when he didn’t get a response within thirty seconds, he reluctantly decided that he needed something to do, something to occupy his hands. He cast his eyes around the room for something that would do and sighed deeply upon noticing the small mountain of dishes in the kitchen sink. Sherlock had apparently been hoarding dirty plates in his room, John guessed, and so he set about scrubbing them a little grimly, secretly glad that they only seemed to have food on them and not the remains of some experiment.

Just as he finished the last dish, his mobile vibrated on the table. John snatched the dishtowel from the counter to dry his hands and picked up the phone. A new text from Sherlock blinked on the screen:

_On my way back to Baker St. New case._

John smiled.

\--

The evening passed, as far as John could tell, normally for Sherlock beginning a case. He whined about the data he was given (“It’s like they couldn’t even be bothered to write down the most important details”) and asked John sudden and seemingly random questions (“You do have your passport, don’t you?”).

John was immensely relieved that whatever the weird tension he had felt after their argument appeared to have forgotten or, at least, swept under the rug.

With the information that they would visit the scene of the crime (the very valuable emeralds of an aristocrat had gone missing at his daughter’s engagement party, John had culled from the tidbits of information that Sherlock had said aloud) the next day, John went to bed.

His sleep was dreamless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any Sayers fans, starting at this moment, I basically ignore most of the Sayers/Walsh account of “The Attenbury Emeralds” and use fragments of the story to my own ends. Carry on!


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Sherlock woke at four thirty in the morning. He dressed quickly and in the dark, selecting in his normal slim-fitting suit from where he’d hung it the night before, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Carefully shifting his weight from foot to foot so as not to make the old floor creak, he crept to the front door where he paused. He closed his eyes and listened intently: no noise from John’s room, not even the squeak of the mattress. Success.

Pleased that he had oiled both the hinges and the lock to 221B the week before, Sherlock smoothly opened and closed the door before stepping outside into the dark morning.

The early spring air was crisp and Sherlock pulled the collar of his coat up as he walked. It was quiet out, with just the faintest hum of activity beneath the surface as parts of the city began to wake. Sherlock walked on, waiting until he came upon a busy enough street to find an empty cab.

Three blocks later, he found one. He gave the driver Peter Wimsey’s address and sat back to think.

The best way to go about discovering what the precise connection was between John and Peter, he thought, was to frame it as a case that he was investigating. A case for Mycroft: top secret, no Scotland Yard, the odd hour to avoid detection, all details could be kept private to protect “secrecy”.

Sherlock smirked at how neatly his plan had come together as he paid off the cab driver and stepped back out into the dark morning. Arriving this early - he glanced at his mobile: 5:08 AM – ensured that Peter Wimsey would be slightly disoriented and easier to manipulate. He rang the bell, holding it for several seconds to guarantee that it was heard, and then stepped back from the door. Quietly dominant was the goal, not intimidating. Not yet, at least.

The door opened to reveal a tall man, slightly taller than Sherlock, but with broad shoulders and a military-straight spine. He had short dark hair, parted precisely over his left eye.  His clothing was civilian (dark pants, white buttoned shirt) but evoked a military dress uniform with sharply ironed creases and an obviously liberal application of starch to the shirt. Though he was not particularly large, he was very _solid_ and he seemed to fill the entire doorway, radiating disapproval at someone ringing the bell at such an uncivilized hour. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed: this was not Peter Wimsey. This must be the flatmate that Mycroft had mentioned.

“May I help you?” the man asked. His voice was neutral, not kind, not pleasant, not threatening. And the question was not so much a question as it was a demand.

“Peter Wimsey, please,” Sherlock said, his voice equally neutral.

The man sighed almost imperceptibly, opened the door fully, and stepped aside. Sherlock entered, wondering if the man was a bodyguard cum nurse assigned to Peter for the duration of his medical leave of absence. If he was a bodyguard, he was a lax one; he didn’t even make the pretense of asking for identification.

“Peter can be found in the living room. As he has a rather large fire going, perhaps you’d like to hang your coat in the closet, Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock turned his head to face this man so quickly that his neck cracked. How did he know his name?

“I’ll keep it.”

Sherlock strode past the man into the living room (the only room with light) where, indeed, there was a large fire roaring in the grate, casting merrily dancing shadows on the furniture in the room. Other than the space taken up by the hearth, mantelpiece and three windows, every inch of wall was lined with wooden bookshelves filled with very old books. A baby grand piano sat sleekly in front of the windows, its gloss contrasting with the aged patina of the books and shelves. Arranged in front of the fire were two overstuffed armchairs and a small sofa, all upholstered in a plush striped fabric that matched the colors of the books. On the small end table next to one of the chairs there was an ancient bronze bowl filled with fresh golden mums next to a stack of three books.

Sherlock processed this information in a matter of seconds before turning his eyes to the slender, middle-aged man with silvery blonde hair dressed in a cared-for (but old) quilted dressing gown belted over his buttoned (no starch) shirt: Lord Peter Wimsey.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes the younger!” he said brightly.

Sherlock frowned at this diminutive.

The blonde man grinned broadly, his pale eyes twinkling with the reflection of the fire, “Of course, I hear you prefer Sherlock? Whatever your parents were thinking between that and Mycroft, I’ll never know. More interesting than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, though, that’s for certain. There _is_ a kind of Victorian elegance to them, wouldn’t you say?”

He paused, looking Sherlock up and down with his too pale eyes. “I say, did Bunter not offer to hang up your coat? Bit warm in here for all that wool. Bunter!”

The man from the door entered silently and held out his hands, waiting to accept Sherlock’s coat.

Sherlock did not move. “I take it my brother has been in touch,” he said coldly.

“Only to let us know that you’d be popping ‘round soon, probably at a most inconvenient hour. I must say that I’m surprised you waited so long; 5:15 is very nearly civilized.” Peter’s tone was light, cheerfully teasing, lacking the acid that the same words from Mycroft would have held.

“Now, then,” he said slightly more seriously as his right hand rummaged about in his dressing gown pocket, “why don’t you have a seat? With or without the coat, it doesn’t matter to me.”

He pulled a small silver cigarette case and lighter from his pocket, pulled out a single cigarette and lit it, smiling as he took the first drag. He spoke, sounding as if he was wondering idly aloud: “Don’t you think these are better in the morning than at any other time of day?”

“Nicotine deprivation,” Sherlock said shortly. “Your body is starved of nicotine overnight, making the morning cigarette more pleasurable.”

Peter looked amused. “Bunter will take exceptional care of that coat, I promise.”

Sherlock felt annoyed but realized that nothing would progress until he sat down – and the fire really was too hot to wear a wool coat in front of. He unbuttoned it and handed it into Bunter’s waiting arms, who left silently with it.

Sherlock sat down in the chair across from Peter, who shifted to tuck his legs underneath him, cat-like, and leant forward with an expectant look.

Sherlock began: “I want to talk to you about a case that I’m investigating for Mycroft…”

Peter waved the hand that was holding the cigarette, effectively cutting Sherlock off mid-sentence. “Would you mind if Bunter sat in? He’s my right hand man for things like this.”

Not seeing Sherlock raise any objections, Peter looked over his head and waved Bunter in. Bunter did not sit on the sofa, but instead stood behind Peter’s chair, producing the effect of a carefully composed painting. Father and son, perhaps, or master and loyal servant. Interesting.

Peter smiled and stubbed out his cigarette in the small glass ashtray next to the bowl of mums. “Sorry, you were saying?”  

Sherlock couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something about Peter was putting him on edge. Perhaps it was because he couldn’t quite identify whatever _it_ was. All of his actions so far, though seemingly innocent, seemed to have been timed perfectly to upset his balance and control of the situation. It reminded him uncomfortably of Mycroft and yet, unlike Mycroft, Peter’s smiles were genuine.

Sherlock upped his wariness by several notches and continued as if he were in control of the situation. “As I said, I am investigating a highly sensitive matter for Mycroft and require information that only you can provide.”

Peter nodded, encouraging Sherlock to continue.

“Six months ago you were in Afghanistan at Camp Bastion.”

Sherlock watched, fascinated by the affect his words had. Peter’s expression remained exactly the same, but his right hand twitched involuntarily. Bunter’s expression changed from careful neutrality to outright suspicion, and his hand moved protectively to the back of Peter’s chair.

“Yes,” Peter answered simply.

“And you were present the night of the insurgent attack on the base.”

“Seeing as you’ve clearly spoken with your brother, I see no need for you to verify these statements. Do, please, continue on to your questions.” Peter’s voice was still light, but the animation had vanished, leaving it rather flat.

Sherlock looked carefully at the lines on Peter’s face and Bunter’s ramrod spine before continuing, knowing how cruel his words were (and how John would have been infuriated at his apparent lack of tact and sensitivity), but not seeing another way to command the situation: “You weren’t seriously injured in the attack and yet you are on indefinite leave for post-traumatic stress disorder. It can’t be for simply seeing violent death in front of you; your first assignment was to Bosnia. A far more traumatizing place, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

Bunter’s hand on the back of Peter’s chair curled into a fist and his resemblance to a predatory hawk with a mouse in his sight increased ten-fold.

Peter stared at Sherlock pensively, the fingers on his left hand tapping the bridge of his nose. 

“Would you like some breakfast?”

Sherlock’s head jerked back in surprise at the apparent non sequitor.  

“I’m afraid I’ve already broken my fast,” continued Peter quite cheerfully, as though Sherlock had not just brought up traumatic memories, “but some tea can never be out of place and it would be no trouble to round up toast with all the fixings.”

He looked at Sherlock expectantly. Bunter’s hand had unclenched and returned to simply resting on the back of the chair.

Sherlock returned Peter’s gaze, reassessing how the interview should continue. “Tea would be lovely,” he said with a gentle and disarming (he hoped) smile.

Peter turned to look up at Bunter, who glared at Sherlock one last time, before leaving to presumably fetch the tea.

“He can get a bit mother-hennish,” Peter said apologetically to Sherlock. “But he means well. Don’t take it personally.”

Sherlock inclined his head to agree, waiting for Peter to speak freely now that Bunter wasn’t hovering.

“Now the case that you’re investigating for Mycroft,” Peter mused. “Doesn’t exist.”

Sherlock blinked in surprise.

“I suppose that your next move might tell me that it’s Mycroft’s investigation into how long I might be on leave for, but that would be completely false. He was the one who insisted I take a leave in the first place.”

Sherlock internally cursed himself for not having deduced that information faster.

Sounding slightly detached, Peter continued, “You know, the reason he put me on leave was because I could not give orders after the attack. He assigned me leave as I could not order my own absence.”

Of course. It made sense: if Peter had been supervising a portion of the base, an attack under his command might instill that fear. Further, he was under stress now and he hadn’t ordered or even asked Bunter to make the tea. Nonverbal communication learned over months of caring for a man with PTSD. Ah yes.

“Whatever it is, then, that you’re actually investigating must be terribly interesting.” A gentle interrogation into Sherlock’s true motives.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, deciding not to relinquish the shred of control that remained to him in the situation by elaborating.

Peter raised his eyebrows, drumming his fingers on the arm rest of the chair, clearly thinking through his options.

“If you’re willing to tell me what you’re really doing, I will assist you to the extent of my abilities,” he said finally.

Sherlock considered the offer. It felt like betrayal to talk about John to anyone else, particularly what John would have considered a weakness. But Peter was one of the few men who knew it wasn’t a weakness. And Peter was still somehow connected to John through the attack.

Still feeling as though he was committing minor treason, Sherlock spoke slowly: “I have a…friend.”

With timing better suited to a comedy, Bunter entered at that moment with a tray. Sherlock fell silent and both he and Peter followed Bunter’s movements as he set the tray next to the bowl of mums and handed Sherlock a china cup and saucer, tea already milked. Sherlock stared at it distastefully – he didn’t take milk – but it seemed foolish and counter-productive not to drink it, so he took a sip, concealing his grimace.

Peter turned to face Bunter who had resumed his post behind Peter’s chair. “Thank you, Bunter. Sherlock was just telling us why he is paying us a visit.”

“Was he?” Bunter sounded deeply skeptical.

Peter turned back to Sherlock. “Do, please, continue. Your friend?”

“Yes, he was also injured in the attack. He needs…help.” Sherlock felt indecisive about what precisely to say that John needed and decided on the safety of vagueness rather than the treason of specifics.

“I presume you’ve already considered a therapist? I think highly of myself, it’s true, but I do think that I would be a poor choice for a shrink.” Peter smiled sardonically. “I’m far too self-absorbed to be of much good to anyone else.” He shifted from his cat-like pose to stretch his legs out in front of him.

“He doesn’t need therapy,” Sherlock said dismissively.

“If I may interrupt,” said Bunter quite unexpectedly. Peter turned to face him attentively. “It seems as though the help Sherlock’s _friend_ needs is someone with a similar set of experiences with whom he can forge a connection. Which is why you seem to have been contacted,” he finished, his face still quite neutral.

“Bunter always does put things better than me,” said Peter brightly. “I always just prattle on until my meaning gets confused and no one knows what on earth I’m talking about.”

Sherlock nodded, hoping it would encourage Peter to continue.

“I’d like to meet this friend, if I could,” Peter said thoughtfully.

“I can arrange something.”

Peter nodded in agreement.  

“Now,” Peter said, digging for his cigarette case and lighter again, “tell me what Mycroft is having you do in exchange for my address. There is no free lunch with him, I hear.”

“A case.”

“Not as interesting as the one you tried to invent about me, I’m sure.”

Sherlock bristled slightly, but it was true. The missing gems of an aristocrat (even with theoretical ties to wealthy Indians on the subcontinent) weren’t particularly interesting.

“No, it is a trifling matter of several missing jewels.”

Peter’s interest seemed suddenly to perk. “Lord Attenbury’s emeralds?”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know they were missing?”

“Oh,” said Peter vaguely, “my mother, who has the most wonderfully discerning eye, was at the party when they went missing and could tell that his daughter was wearing the glass copies. She told Bunter about it so that he could tell me.” Peter smiled and said rather conspiratorially, “One of Bunter’s many invaluable services is to cheer me up with terribly amusing stories.”

“How well do you know Attenbury?” Sherlock asked, carefully, deciding it was better to ignore the red herring of what the rest of Bunter’s services entailed.

“Oh, well enough, I should think. We’ve been to the same boring parties all our lives.”

Sherlock stared at Peter and Bunter, his mind whirring. Finally the cogs clicked into place and he said, “Meet me at his flat today. Two o’clock. Sharp.”

“Excellent! We’ll join you there.” Peter grinned broadly and even Bunter looked cautiously optimistic.

Sherlock stood to leave, nodded to Peter, and followed Bunter out of the room. As Bunter retrieved his coat from the hall closet, he said very quietly, “You are a particularly interesting individual.”

Sherlock nodded once, deciding words were not required to acknowledge the statement.

Bunter opened the front door before Sherlock could even reach for it. “Two o’clock, then,” he said in his normal tone and volume of voice.

“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed, stepping out of the flat. The door shut decisively behind him. 

London was far more light and awake and Sherlock strode quickly down the street, feeling horribly as though he’d just been deftly outmaneuvered and manipulated, looking for a cab to take him safely back home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at last, four chapters in, finally meeting modern!Peter. What do you think?


	5. Chapter 5

 When John awoke (no alarm again; he’d forgotten to turn it back on), light was pouring in through the blinds he’d left open and Sherlock was playing the violin.

Unlike the night before, when Sherlock’s playing had been soothing, today’s music was discordant and atonal. Listening a moment more, John supposed there might be a melody tucked in there somewhere, but his unpracticed ear couldn’t sort it out.

Checking the time (9:30 AM), John swore, got up and scrambled to get dressed. Sherlock must have gotten antsy waiting for him in order to start that case. No wonder the music sounded irritated. He hurried down the stairs, still buttoning his shirt, hoping that there would be time to eat something before Sherlock dragged him out the door.

Sherlock was standing, facing the windows, as he played, so John addressed his tense back. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the violin. “Hey, Sherlock? I’m up now. Should we go?”

Whatever semblance to a melody there was disappeared as Sherlock raked his bow across the strings in seemingly great annoyance.

“We’re not going until two,” he said, shortly.

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me. We’re not going until two.”

John relaxed a fraction, relieved at not having to sprint madly out the door, and went into the kitchen to assemble breakfast. Taking Sherlock’s continued violin silence as an invitation, he asked, “Is Lestrade busy or something this morning?”

“Not Lestrade’s case.”

John laughed in surprise, “Oh, working with other detective inspectors now, are you?”

Sherlock sighed deeply. “As always, John, you see but you do not observe. Scotland Yard wouldn’t be involved in an international case. Were you not following our conversation about India last night?”

Frankly, John didn’t think that Sherlock _had_ mentioned India last night. At least, he hadn’t mentioned it aloud. He thought for a moment, remembering Sherlock’s query about his passport. “Is it Mycroft’s case, then?” he posed rather hesitantly, not sure exactly how far in the world Mycroft’s powers extended.

Sherlock said nothing, but the look on his face eloquently said, “ _Obviously_.”

“Since when do you investigate cases for Mycroft?” John asked incredulously.

“I owed him a favor.”

Sherlock sounded as though he was suddenly disinterested in the conversation, which just made John more suspicious about his answers.

“Okay, what did he do for you?”

“No matter,” answered Sherlock firmly. “But we wait until two.”

John frowned at the fact that Sherlock was obviously and deliberately hiding something from him. What it might have, been, though, John had no idea. Something to do with Mycroft and India, though, had to be something interesting.

“Well, then,” said John, pointedly changing the subject, “Why don’t you take some of this time to fill me in about the case?”

“I told you last night,” Sherlock responded accusingly.

“No,” John said with forced patience. “You had a conversation with me in your head. All I know is that this is about something that the police aren’t investigating, some mysterious emeralds, an engagement party and, apparently, India.”

Sherlock pursed his lips, but put his violin down and relented to connecting the details. “Lord Attenbury’s emeralds, which were stolen twenty years ago by several Indian diplomats and rescued several weeks later, have gone missing again. Scandalously, they went missing this time on the night of his daughter’s engagement party a week ago. Mycroft, not wanting Scotland Yard to inadvertently cause an international crisis with their hapless ways, has asked me to discretely locate the emeralds.”

“Emeralds are definitely a change from a body,” said John in an attempt at humor. “Nice change for the blog.”

Sherlock shook his head at John’s poor deployment of logic. “There are millions of pounds and international relations at risk. In all likelihood, there is a trail of bodies that simply hasn’t been noticed yet.”

“Right.”

“Besides, Mycroft won’t let you publish state secrets.”

Fair enough, John thought. “So, we might be going to India in order to track these emeralds down?”

“Quite possibly. I need to speak with Attenbury first.” Sherlock scowled again suddenly and added darkly, “At two.”

Sherlock picked up his violin from the coffee table and began to play again. It was not as cacophonous as it had been earlier, but it was still clearly annoyed.

John left him to it.

\--

At two o’clock, John found himself standing in front of an anonymous, though obviously expensive, building in Kensington after a tense cab ride with Sherlock.

“So, this is Attenbury’s, then?”

“Yes.” Sherlock was uncharacteristically fidgety, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and checking his mobile frequently. He seemed to be waiting for someone and John looked up and down the street, trying to see who it might be who would be facing Sherlock’s fury for being late.

The street wasn’t particularly busy, which limited the options of potential individuals enormously. There was a young and quite pretty woman pushing a pram, an elderly well-dressed couple taking an afternoon stroll in the weak sunshine, and a middle aged man walking purposefully, carrying a newspaper. John paid particular attention to the man with the newspaper, but he walked past them and continued down the street and Sherlock’s agitation didn’t change. Not him, then.

“Who is it exactly that we’re waiting for?” John asked as he watched the man with the newspaper cross the street and continue on his way.

Sherlock ignored the question and looked at his mobile again. “He’s _late._ ”

John couldn’t help himself. “Really?” he said, with a heavy dose of sarcasm, earning a glare from Sherlock.

Sherlock started muttering indistinctly under his breath. The only phrase John caught was, “This was a mistake.”

John felt his temper flare. “Okay, would you like to tell me what the fuck is going on here? _Who_ are we waiting for?”

Sherlock hesitated before answering, “An associate.”

“So, you’re doing a job for Mycroft - which you accepted without complaining about it - and now you’re working with a new associate who is apparently unreliable. Again, would you like to tell me what the fuck is going on here because this is not like you.”

Sherlock looked as though he were about to answer before his body went still and his eyes narrowed. John swung around to see what had caught his eye and saw two men walking towards them. One was rather tall, somewhere indeterminately between a young man and middle age, with broad shoulders and what John recognized as a military-straightness to his spine and gait. The other man was shorter and slighter in build, and dressed in a well-cut, old-fashioned yet somehow timeless tweed jacket. He was extremely blonde, with pale, nearly colorless eyes, and walked as though there were springs at the bottom of his shoes. Though his head remained level with each step, it seemed to John that there was a certain jaunty energy to his gait. Almost as though, John thought as the men approached, the man had an internal soundtrack set permanently to ‘energetic brass band’.

Were these the men that Sherlock was waiting for?

“You’re _late,_ ” Sherlock accused, as soon as the men were in earshot, which affirmatively answered John’s question.

“Oh, only five minutes!” said the smaller, blonde man in cheerful protest. “Do you know how difficult it is to get parking here? We very nearly ended up halfway home. Besides,” he said, looking up to the sky with a grin and throwing out his arms, “sunshine, blue sky! The winter of our discontent has been made glorious again!” He paused and added thoughtfully, “Though I doubt the Queen would switch Windsor for York these days.”

“Nine and that is what cabs are for,” said Sherlock tightly, ignoring the vast majority of what had just been said.

John stared in shock, utterly taken aback by the man’s over-the-top manner. And, who outside of pretentious theater critics, opened a conversation with what John vaguely recognized as Shakespeare?

The blonde man smiled in acknowledgement of Sherlock’s refusal to acknowledge any of his cleverness before turning to John and exclaiming, “And now I’ve gone and been doubly rude - completely forgotten my manners! I’m Peter Wimsey and this here is Bunter.” He inclined his head to indicate the taller man beside him before continuing, “My man for all seasons – winter and summer alike - as it were. Angel’s wit and singular learning! Good old Whittington,” he said fondly.

That reference was completely lost on John and he struggled to find words that would constitute any sort of response to the phrases flung in his direction.

Peter beat him to the punch, though, by continuing: “Of course, you must be John Watson. I do hope you can generously find it in your heart to forgive me.”

John’s mind, which had previously been racing to keep up with the references, exclamations, and sheer tonnage of words, finally caught up to what had just been said. This man was _Peter Wimsey –_ the man he had looked up the day before _._ He felt as though his brain had been suddenly wiped clean. The only thing left was the name, playing on an endless loop: _Peter Wimsey. Peter Wimsey. Peter Wimsey. Peter Wimsey._

How on earth could Peter Wimsey be here? And Bunter could only be the Bunter who had pulled Major Wimsey out from underneath the helicopter.  He had only just been looking up the Wimsey family yesterday, how could they have gotten here now? How were they suddenly Sherlock’s new associates? Sherlock didn’t work with just anyone. Why, why, why? How?

John realized that the two men – _Peter Wimsey_ and _Bunter_ \- were staring at him expectantly.

“Er, yes, sorry. John’s fine.” He stuck out his hand in Peter’s direction.

“Excellent, excellent, lovely to meet you,” Peter said as he shook his hand with a great deal of energy. Turning to Sherlock, he continued brightly, “Shall we go up? He’s expecting us at 2:15.”

“Expecting us,” Sherlock repeated suspiciously.

“Yes, I phoned ahead. One can’t just pop ‘round socially without fair warning,” Peter chided gently, though John felt as though he detected a hint of mockery.  

John braced for a Sherlockian and venomous outburst, but surprisingly none came. Sherlock instead huffed angrily, turned on his heel, and began to walk up the street.

Peter seemed terribly amused and turned to John, “Coming?”

“Yes, sorry.”

John fell into pace with Peter (in speed, if not attitude. If walks could have attitude; John supposed that they could), with Bunter a step behind. As they watched Sherlock jab a bell insistently two buildings down the street, John felt as though he would burst with curiosity:  “I’m sorry, I have to ask, are you Major Wimsey?”

“I am indeed,” Peter said with a light laugh. “One of my many titles. Right up there with ‘Lord,’ ‘Master,’ ‘Charming Nuisance,’ and ‘Court Fool’ of course.”

John, though confused by the apparent jokes, felt his spine involuntarily straighten in the presence of a superior officer.

“Oh, don’t bother with that around me,” Peter said. “I would really only insist on that if you were being naughty. And, of course, if you were really wicked, I’d have to insist on my full title and _all_ of my middle names.” He winked and added, “Including the ones I’ve christened myself with, mind.”

John willed his shoulders to relax, but curiosity and suspicion (really, how had these two men turned up after John had heard their names only two days before?) kept them straight. Who _was_ this man? He could make neither heads nor tails of him.

Peter smiled (John thought that he seemed to smile far too much for such a high ranking officer) and added, “Now Bunter, here, if he had his way, would be back in uniform and insist on morning drills. You’re in excellent company.”

“Right,” said John uncomfortably. In his preoccupation with Peter, he’d nearly forgotten Bunter’s silent and authoritative presence at his back. Who _were_ these men? To John, Peter seemed like caricature of the plummy aristocrat played by an overeager actor and, though he hadn’t yet heard Bunter say a single word, he seemed like the consummate silent bodyguard. They almost didn’t seem _real_ – more like a comedy duo having a day out on the town _._

John surreptitiously tried to examine Peter out of the corner of his eye for evidence of his time in the military and his presence at the attack. He couldn’t immediately see any visible scarring that would have indicated the head trauma that he had speculated about, but that certainly didn’t mean that there weren’t scars he couldn’t see. He opened his mouth to ask whether or not they had served in Afghanistan as a bridge to asking about the attack on Camp Bastion, but Peter spoke first.

“But never mind all that,” he said as they finally caught up to Sherlock. “Is he not answering? Here, let me have a go.”

Not waiting for Sherlock to respond, Peter pushed the bell and spoke into the speaker box, “Hello, Richard? Peter and company here. Have you changed your mind about visitors this afternoon? I do hope you haven’t. Ah, cheers, there we go.” The door buzzed and Peter held it open for Sherlock with a seemingly ironic bow.

As Sherlock glared, John felt himself smiling despite being completely mystified by what was actually going on (a case for Mycroft? _Two_ unknown associates?). Peter seemed to be effortlessly infuriating and yet completely controlling Sherlock, something which John knew from experience was not easy or even possible to do. Why Sherlock wasn’t putting a stop to this, John couldn’t figure out. He’d seen Sherlock shut down so many others so quickly – what on earth was so special about Peter?

John felt slightly dizzy from all of the speculation and new information that Peter and Bunter’s presence had induced. It was as though his senses had all been momentarily overloaded and were fighting their way back to equilibrium. If his senses could still detect anything, John decided, Peter was clearly not strictly military (though Bunter definitely was) and probably quite mad.

So, what the fuck was going on? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, at last, we have John and Peter! 
> 
> Peter Wimsey is famous (notorious?) for referencing literary works in conversation frequently. While I'm not nearly as well read as Sayers (I also do not know Latin, alas), I've attempted to make this Peter do something quite similar. Also, John was right: Peter's first reference was Shakespeare's Richard III. The "Man for All Seasons" reference refers to where the title of Bolt's play came from: Robert Whittington's description of More.


	6. Chapter 6

“Richard, old man, how are you holding up?” Peter exclaimed as the four of them trooped into Lord Attenbury’s lavishly decorated and brightly lit sitting room.

“You’ll remember Bunter, of course,” Peter continued without pause. “And this is Sherlock Holmes and his associate John Watson.” Sherlock and John both nodded in greeting.

“May we sit?” Peter asked, already making to sit down in a silk-upholstered armchair.

Lord Richard Attenbury looked rather taken aback by Peter’s ebullience and the sudden appearance of four men in his flat. “Yes, yes,” he managed. “Do please sit.”

“Thank you,” said John as he sat on one end of the sofa, with Sherlock on the other. Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, as though the sofa had jabbed him in the back. Bunter, John noticed, didn’t sit, but remained standing discretely behind Peter’s armchair.

Lord Attenbury was comfortably middle aged, his hair greying at the temples and beginning to thin. While he’d clearly been slim in his youth, weight was beginning to creep onto his frame, padding out his jowls just enough to show that in old age they would droop considerably. He seemed to John to be weary and a little bit lost, as though a great weight had recently been placed on his shoulders and he didn’t quite know what to do other than to bear it.

“My mother told me about Clementine’s party,” Peter said sympathetically. “Dreadful, dreadful business.”

“Yes,” Lord Attenbury agreed rather despondently. “We’ve had every precaution in place since they were returned to us, though apparently they were insufficient.”

“You know,” Peter confided with an air of confidentiality. “Sherlock here does a good line in amateur investigations. If you gave him all the sordid details, maybe he’d be able to give you a hand.”

John felt more than saw Sherlock’s bristling at being called an amateur. He smiled to himself; Peter seemed to have a definite flair for the dramatic.

Lord Attenbury shook his head, “I’ve already been in touch with investigators; it’s rather out of my hands now. Besides,” he added ruefully, “they’re probably already in India by now. Rather beyond the reach of a drawing room detective, wouldn’t you say?”

“ _I_ would say that you’ve not exhausted your sources,” said Sherlock with asperity. “Just as I know that your wife recently had this room redecorated, that you think it too feminine and that your hired help has had the last week off, though they routinely cut corners on their dusting.”

Lord Attenbury gaped frankly at Sherlock. John grinned at the return of Sherlock’s typical form and Peter looked deeply amused.

“How did you…” Lord Attenbury ventured.

“Simple. The paint is quite new on the walls. Perhaps it was just a fresh paint job, but it’s not. It matches the exact tint of the flowers on all of the upholstered chairs. Other than the blue flowers, the upholstery is white. Bright white, with very little wear. Brand new, then. But the furniture itself is not; you can see scratches and wear on the woodwork as well as scratches on the floor matching the exact footprint of each of the chairs’ legs. So: reupholstered, not new. There is a fine layer of dust on all of the surfaces, about a week’s worth, so your help hasn’t cleaned in a week. However, there are several weeks’ worth of dust in the details of the woodwork on this sofa and in the engraving on the mirror above the mantelpiece, so your help cuts corners on the dusting. As you’ve had it redecorated in the last month, though, the neglected dust is not yet particularly noticeable.”

“But…but how did you know I thought it too feminine?” Lord Attenbury managed to splutter. John thought that he was remarkably coherent for being in shock.

“Obvious,” Sherlock scoffed. “Your eye keeps wandering to the upholstery as though you are unaccustomed to it and it makes you uncomfortable every time you notice it. And you, though you sat down first, are sitting in the only chair in the room that is not upholstered: the only chair that you still feel comfortable using since your wife redecorated. This room was obviously more masculine previous to your wife’s interventions as can be seen from the dark wood trim and the fact that the furniture itself is not delicate and not particularly well suited to the color scheme or the fabric type, but instead to something darker and rather sturdier.” He finished as though concluding a speech, which, John thought, it had been.

“I don’t see how you could have known all that,” said Lord Attenbury, sounding rather awestruck. “But, you’re quite right. My wife re-did the room six weeks ago so that it would be more appropriate for Clementine’s party.”

John wondered again what it was with aristocrats and naming their daughters. Winifred, Clementine…at least Sherlock and Mycroft didn’t have any sisters; God knows what their names would have been.

“It’s quite well done, though” said Peter, looking admiringly around the room. “I say, would you mind if I took some photos of that mantelpiece? My mother has been particularly interested in restoring some of the marble bits and pieces around Denver, you know, and that is an awfully fine specimen. Lovely detailing.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” said Lord Attenbury rather distractedly, still staring at Sherlock in what John recognized as the familiar combination of shock, fear, and awe. Peter nodded to Bunter, who pulled a very sleek mobile from his pocket and began snapping photographs.

“The camera’s much better on his,” Peter explained apologetically, though no one took any particular notice of it.

“Now, unless you require a further demonstration of my competence, tell us about your emeralds,” Sherlock prodded Lord Attenbury.

“No, no, quite fine,” Attenbury said hastily. “I have the glass replicas here, if you’d like to see them.”

Attenbury opened a bound leather case that had been on the spindly end table (new and white, matching the new upholstery). John leant forward to see them better. Even though they were the glass copies, they were remarkably beautiful. In the center of the case, nestled in black velvet, was a necklace with a large rectangular, step-cut emerald (glass, John had to remind himself) in a rather heavy-looking, silver art deco setting. The glass gem was deep green, nearly transparent, and at least an inch long. Next to the necklace was a set of earrings with smaller square emeralds, surrounded by round diamonds, and a plain silver ring with a dark, oval-cut emerald set into the slim band.

“It’s a remarkable suite,” Peter said a little wistfully.

“It’s been in the family for over a hundred and fifty years,” Attenbury explained with a touch of pride.

“Those aren’t the original settings, though?” John asked, thinking that the settings didn’t look particularly Victorian.

“No, no, they were reset by my grandmother in 1925. The star of the collection is this one here,” Attenbury pointed to the necklace with the remarkably large stone. “Which was originally set into a tiara, I believe. My grandmother designed this set so that the gems were easily removable in case future generations changed their minds about the settings as she had done. You see?” He picked up the necklace and demonstrated how the large gem could be removed from its protective setting.

Sherlock held out his hands expectantly and, after a look to Peter for reassurance, Attenbury handed Sherlock the case.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to explain this to me, but why the glass copies?” John asked.

“Ah, well, you see, my grandmother was a terribly clever woman and insisted on keeping the real emeralds in a bank vault for safekeeping. Because of the hassle involved in getting them out, she had a glass set made to be kept at home and worn as individual pieces. For larger occasions in which the whole suite would be worn together, she would fetch the originals from the bank.”

“A remarkable lady, she was” said Peter. “Don’t you think, Bunter?”

“Yes, indeed,” replied Bunter from next to the mantelpiece. John realized that he had completely forgotten Bunter, who seemed to be painstakingly photographing every inch of the mantelpiece.

“I’m surprised Clementine didn’t have these reset. Doesn’t look much like what the kids are all wearing these days,” Peter mused.

“She had – has – an appreciation for the history of the pieces,” Attenbury responded defensively.

“Oh, now, no reason to get upset!” Peter exclaimed. “I was just thinking that such a modern girl with such a good eye for fashion would just pop that big one out and have it set in something a little sleeker.”

“Yes, well,” Attenbury conceded. “She and Mark – her fiancé – decided they didn’t want anything too extravagant and that these gems were already too hard to wear these days; no need to spend money on something that still wouldn’t be worn much.”

John felt a little taken aback by this show of frugality by someone who was clearly swimming in money. He looked over at Sherlock to see how he was reacting, but found him entirely absorbed in examining the glass emeralds.

“Sensible girl,” Peter murmured.

Lord Attenbury nodded rather sadly in agreement.

Sherlock finally looked up from the glass gems on his lap and said with an encouraging and friendly smile, “Now, walk us through how they went missing at the party.”

 _Turning on the charm_ , John thought.

Lord Attenbury sighed and began: “Well, Alice – my wife – thought that it would be nice if the emeralds came out for the engagement party. We haven’t pulled them out much since we recovered them from India twenty years ago from that madman who _insisted_ that they were rightfully his, but it was a special night and it was only going to be friends.”

“Did you invite any foreign diplomats to the party?” Sherlock interrupted.

“No Indian ones,” Attenbury said quickly. “We weren’t going to repeat that mistake. But the French ambassador is an old friend of mine. He and his wife were here.” He ran his hand over his face tiredly. “Surely you don’t think that Pierre stole them for the Indians, do you? Why, we’ve been friends since university.”

John felt a little uncomfortable about Attenbury’s continued reference to “the Indians” as though the entire country was out to steal his property.

“Go on, Richard. I’m sure Pierre’s in the clear,” said Peter soothingly.

“Well, that afternoon Alice went and retrieved them from the bank – we didn’t want them sitting around the house overnight, you see – and they were on her dresser for several hours until Clementine got dressed around seven.”

“And who else was in the house then?” Sherlock asked.

“Me, Alice and Clementine, of course,” Attenbury said, ticking each individual off on his fingers. Then there were three girls from an agency that we’d hired to serve the food, a hair dresser who was doing Clementine and Alice’s hair, and Mark, who was down here with me while the girls got ready.”

“And when, precisely, did you notice they were missing?”

Lord Attenbury sighed again. “Clementine was taking a very long time to get ready and the first guests had begun to arrive, so I sent Mark upstairs to see when she would be ready. He came running back down a few moments later, saying that Clementine was in hysterics because the emeralds weren’t in the box that Alice had brought. I went upstairs and found Clementine crying and Alice and the hair dresser on their knees, searching under all of the furniture.”

“And you’re certain that the emeralds left the bank? I mean, Alice didn’t just grab the empty box from the vault, did she?” Peter asked.

Sherlock glared at Peter for interrupting his interrogation and Peter seemed not to notice. Or, John re-assessed, he seemed just not to care.

Attenbury shifted his attention to Peter and addressed him instead of Sherlock. “No, I’m certain they reached us. Alice and I looked at them when she returned from the bank.”

“And I’m sure you searched all the staff…” Peter prompted expectantly.

“Oh yes, of course. I immediately gathered all of the staff, had them turn out their pockets, and then started a more thorough search of the bedrooms. But they never found them.”

“And you still had the party?” John asked.

“We didn’t want to spoil the evening,” Attenbury explained. “So we calmed Clementine down, Alice got the glass copies out, and we told none of the guests. In fact, I don’t think anyone noticed – well, except your mother, of course.”

The last part was directed at Peter who smiled a little ruefully. “Yes, I’m afraid you can’t get too much past her. I never could get away with anything as a child.”

Sherlock interrupted the reminiscing rather coldly, “And you still believe that Mr. Vengalil is responsible for this?”

“He must be!” Lord Attenbury cried loudly. “I don’t know how, but he must have found a way! He’s been obsessed with these gems ever since he realized that he had a matching stone to the necklace. He i _nsists_ that they should be reunited and are rightfully his.” Lord Attenbury inhaled deeply and collected himself, “I’m sorry, it’s been such a miserable week.”

“Completely understandable,” said Peter gently. “And we’re only tiring you out. Sherlock, if you’re ready perhaps we’ll take our leave?”

John waited for Sherlock to shoot Peter’s suggestion down and continue questioning Attenbury, but to his great surprise, Sherlock nodded.

“Yes, I’ll let you know if I find anything new. Come on, John.” Sherlock stood up with one hand casually in his pocket and beckoned to John with the other.

John stood in shock and followed Peter and Sherlock to the door, with Bunter, who had only just finished his intensive photography, a few steps behind him.

“Thank you very much for listening to my tale of woe,” said Lord Attenbury rather mournfully, shaking Sherlock’s hand. “And it was good to see you again, Peter, even under these unfortunate circumstances.”

The door shut quietly behind Bunter and the four men made their way back outside.

“Well!” said Peter expansively back out in the weak sunshine. “That was a fun exercise in pointing the finger the wrong way.”

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“John, surely even you noticed that no Indian nobleman managed to get his hands on the emeralds this time,” Sherlock snorted.

John felt a little rankled that Sherlock and Peter were catching something that he hadn’t noticed yet.

“Well, _I_ still don’t see how they managed to magically vanish from a box,” John retorted.

“Ah, enter three witches!” Peter responded dramatically.

Bunter spoiled the theatricality by snorting.

“Er, what?” John asked, thrown. He noticed that Sherlock had rolled his eyes.

“A dark cave,” Peter continued. “Thunder?” he asked John hopefully.

Silence fell as John tried to remember where he’d heard the words before. Vague memories of school lessons floated unhelpfully through his brain and he shrugged.

“Macbeth,” said Sherlock with an air of suffering fools. “Obviously inspired by your use of the word ‘magic’.”

“Oh, very good! Very good!” Peter cried, looking delighted. “Back to mine to discuss all manner of things? Solve our whodunit and stir the cauldron? I’m parked just over this way.”

John looked to Sherlock, who hesitated before nodding his assent with yet another impressive roll of his eyes.

They followed Peter down the street, who was whistling something both complicated and sprightly (was it Mozart? Sherlock would know), with Bunter discretely behind them again.

“Sherlock,” John hissed. “Since when have you known Shakespeare off the top of your head?”

“Surely you’ve heard the explanation for how Ricci’s mind palace works already,” Sherlock chided, simultaneously reproachful and incredulous.

“Yes, fine, but since when has Shakespeare been more important than astronomy?”

“I do hope you’re joking, John.” His voice was still sharp, but John caught the momentary flash of amusement in his eye and he felt a rush of giddiness. Back on form. Back to normal.  

Except, this wasn’t normal. John looked behind him, but Bunter was several steps behind. Out of earshot, he reckoned. Still, becoming suddenly more serious, he whispered, “How do you know Peter and Bunter?”

“They’re in Mycroft’s employ,” Sherlock replied, sotto voce.

That sentence, John thought, raised even more questions than it answered. Perhaps most importantly: How had members of his unit known the names of Mycroft’s operatives? And then, John wondered uneasily, what had they been doing in Afghanistan?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a slight delay in posting the next chapter as I am both travelling and busy writing final papers as a grad student. Fear not, though, as I will be back. If everything goes well, it will probably be in about a week. If things go poorly, it will be in two weeks (I'm really hoping that it's only one!). Thanks for your understanding (and for all the nice comments)!


	7. Chapter 7

John had supposed that after knowing Peter for several hours and witnessing not only his enthusiastic and almost silly-ass manner but also his apparent ease in manipulating Sherlock, that nothing else about him could really be all that surprising. He was clearly brilliant, eccentric – and John was willing to take the unpredictable oddities as they came – and trustworthy, if both Mycroft and Sherlock were willing to work with him. As he looked around the grand front room of Peter’s flat, though, he found himself surprised again.

He’d thought that Sherlock had a lot of books, but Peter’s collection outstripped it easily. While Sherlock’s were largely skewed towards cutting edge chemistry texts, anything related to crime, and gossip magazines (“It’s important to understand how the vast majority of the population thinks, John. Which is to say, not at all.”), Peter’s collection seemed to be quite old; some of them didn’t seem to be in English. Peter seemed to be a book collector of all things. The books, though, were not the focus of the room; that honor, to John’s further surprise, was accorded to a glossy piano.

“Do you play, then?” he asked politely, as Peter, Bunter, and Sherlock finished sorting out their coats and scarves, supposing that music and genius went hand in hand (if Sherlock was any example).

“No, I keep it as a pet,” Peter replied easily if cryptically.

John raised his eyebrows skeptically.

“Truly, Bunter and I take her for a walk every afternoon at 4:15 precisely.”

John decided to play along with the joke. “And what’s its name?” he asked, as though inquiring after a rather precious pet dog.

Surprisingly, it was Bunter who responded fondly, “We call her Anne Laura Beatrice Annabel Lee.”

“That’s a…mouthful,” said John uncertainly, not quite sure how to respond to such a list of names given with such obvious affection from Bunter. Annabel Lee he knew was Poe, but others were lost on him (if, indeed, they were references at all and not just random names). He looked over to Sherlock to see if he was about to reel off the correct references, but Sherlock seemed to be absorbed in examining three books on the end table.

“Usually I just call her Darling,” Peter grinned. “For short.”

John wondered if Sherlock had named his violin. Would he be so sentimental as to name it? Would it have a woman’s name?

Peter interrupted John’s train of thought, by clapping his hands excitedly. “Now that we all know each other, shall we get started? Sherlock?”

“No, no, please,” Sherlock said with what seemed to be deference from the chair that he’d chosen near the fireplace.

Since when did Sherlock pass up the opportunity to show off? Suspicious, John sat down in the other chair. Peter remained standing – he seemed to have too much energy to sit or to even stand in one place.

“Why don’t we start with what we know?” Peter said, as though beginning a lecture. “No Indian noblemen.”

“No,” Sherlock agreed.

“Jewels removed from the bank vault.”

Sherlock nodded.

“And jewels are now missing.”

“Not quite,” Sherlock interrupted with an air of smugness.

“Oho, not missing are they?” exclaimed Peter, seemingly unaffected by the fact that he’d been incorrect.

“I thought we were investigating _missing jewels_ ,” John interjected.

“Yes, and some of them are still missing. But whoever took them suffered from a severe lack of organization and poor planning.” Sherlock sounded disgusted by the apparent failings of the thief to properly steal the emeralds.

When no one responded, Sherlock continued: “If you looked properly at the glass replicas, the gems were quite uniform in quality and very nearly translucent: clearly made of glass. No emerald of that size and age could have those qualities. The ring, though, was of a much poorer quality: cloudy with several imperfections. It was real.”

“So you’re saying,” John summarized, trying to think through the implications of having the real emerald ring hidden amongst the glass copies. “That whoever took the emeralds switched them with the glass copies and accidentally left the ring behind.”

“Which, of course, leaves the question: where are the others?” said Peter eagerly.

“And who did it,” John noted.

“I believe Bunter might have the answer to the first question,” responded Sherlock.

“Indeed, I do believe he does!” Peter rubbed his hands together bounced in excited anticipation.

 _What?_ John couldn’t follow how Bunter may have the answer to where the emeralds were.

Bunter pulled out his mobile – _Ah, all of the pictures!_ John thought – and brought it over to Sherlock.

“I believe that the sixth, seventh, and twelfth are particularly illuminating,” said Bunter quite calmly in contrast to Peter’s great energy. 

 Sherlock scrolled through the images quickly. “Indeed,” he agreed. “Now, to the more interesting question of who put them there.”

“Hang on,” John interjected. “Are you saying that the emeralds were on the mantle?”

“See for yourself,” Sherlock answered, handing him Bunter’s mobile.

John scrolled through the photos, counting in his head. The sixth and seventh pictures were of the foot of a delicate and slender ceramic vase. The twelfth was a close shot of the neck of the vase, highlighting the pale blue painted flowers that adorned it.

“The emeralds are in the vase?”

“Obviously. Do you see the dust disturbances around the foot and neck of the vase? It’s the only thing that’s been disturbed in the last week. Remember, no one has cleaned the room since the party.”

“Just because someone moved the vase, doesn’t mean that the emeralds are in it,” John retorted.

“Bunter?” Peter asked.

Bunter sounded somewhat regretful. “I was unable to capture a picture, as the angle necessary would have attracted the attention of the room.”

“But…” prompted Peter.

“After capturing the dust, I discreetly shifted the vase and found it far too heavy to be empty, suggesting that the emeralds were hidden inside.”

“Brilliant!” Peter exclaimed.

“Inconclusive!” John protested to Sherlock. “There could have been anything in that vase – you didn’t even touch it.”

Sherlock remained quiet and John, feeling rather bold in the success of his analysis, continued: “Besides, you spent all that time looking at the settings. You should know that there is no way that the art deco necklace would fit through the neck of that vase.”

John basked in his moment of triumph at noticing something that no one, including Sherlock, had. Peter looked intrigued and Bunter continued to look impassive, though held out his hand to John in a silent request for the return of his mobile. John obliged.

John watched as Sherlock, still quiet, reached into his trouser pocket and slowly pulled out the art deco necklace. Missing the emerald.

“That’s the setting, isn’t it,” said John rather flatly.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed.

“You sat on it, didn’t you,” John accused.

“Yes.” Sherlock sounded offended that the discovery of such a key piece of evidence had been the product of the sheer luck of where he’d chosen to sit.

“So, they put the emerald in the vase and the rest in the sofa.”

“I believe that they discovered precisely the same thing that you noticed, John,” said Sherlock with a trace of amusement. “And were forced to come up with an alternate plan after removing the emerald from its setting.”

Peter looked as though he were going to burst from the effort of not laughing.  

“As I said before,” Sherlock concluded. “Severely disorganized.”

“So, who did it?” John asked.

“Any of the individuals who were in the flat before the party started and would have access after it was over. Have your pick.”

“So, none of the hired staff,” John clarified.

“Which leaves us with the Attenburys and the fiancé,” mused Peter.

“Precisely,” said Sherlock.

“Shall we go back, then?” Peter inquired innocently, if slightly eagerly.

“What?” John asked, completely taken aback by the question.

“To stage our best Agatha Christie,” Peter explained, sounding shocked that no one else had followed his clear logic. “So it was _you_ , Lord Attenbury…” he mimed theatrically, pointing accusingly at an imaginary aristocrat.

“No,” said Sherlock shortly, his eyes narrowed.

“Oh, but it would be such fun!” Peter protested. “A dark room, a small fire, the family gathered in a tense circle ‘round the detective…can’t you see it?”

John nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of the thought, but thought the better of it after seeing Sherlock’s fury.

“We know who did it already,” said Sherlock rather coldly, dropping his rather charming persona that had allowed Peter to participate in the evidence analysis. “It was Clementine and her fiancé in a ploy to get more money. Quite dull and distinctly sloppy.”

Sherlock explained, perhaps wanting to prevent another ridiculous suggestion from Peter, “All Clementine had to do was to steal the jewels from her mother’s bedroom, give them to her fiancé to hold, wear the glass set, retrieve the real set from her fiancé after the party and hide them where they could be rescued later and sold. Clearly, though, she lost her head, mixed up the rings, and didn’t anticipate the setting being too large to fit through the neck of the vase.”

“But why?” John asked. “Wasn’t she going to inherit them anyway? Why bother stealing them?”

“Her fiancé isn’t independently wealthy – didn’t you hear how she’s suddenly money-conscious? And there was already a precedent for stealing the emeralds. She could never sell them in her own right – imagine the shame of selling the family jewels, John – but if they were stolen? Not only would she receive the insurance pay out, but she could get a considerable fortune on the black market.” Sherlock looked rather pleased with himself.

The room was still with impressed silence until Peter broke it rather mischievously, his hands in his pockets, “Don’t you think that would have been more fun to have done in front of the family? I mean, it’s all very good and entertaining for us, but _think_ of the drama…”

Before Sherlock could respond, Bunter’s mobile began to vibrate.

“If you’ll just excuse me,” he said as he stepped out of the room.

“So, what now?” John asked Sherlock, wanting to prevent Sherlock’s murder of Peter in cold blood.

Bunter stepped back into the room, cutting off Sherlock’s answer before it was formed. “It’s Mycroft for you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock frowned. “He knows my number,” he said dismissively.

“He’s quite insistent,” said Bunter, placidly firm. “Perhaps you’d like to take it in the kitchen?”

Sherlock glared for a moment, but stood and followed Bunter from the room.

To John, the room felt suddenly empty even though Peter was still there with him. He wasn’t quite sure what he should do now. Continue talking about the case? Ask more about Anne Laura…whoever the piano was? Try to get the subject around to Afghanistan? Sit in silence?

Peter, on the other hand, seemed to have decided on a course of action. He settled comfortably into the chair that Sherlock had just vacated, tucking his legs underneath him, and asked John brightly, “Is he always like that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter’s piano is named after women (both real and fictional), much beloved, pined for and mourned by famous men. In order, we have: John Donne’s wife, Anne; Petrarch’s Laura; Dante’s Beatrice; and (to skip several centuries) Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee. The names are, perhaps, an interesting reflection of Peter’s mind and what he’s been reading while recovering these last six months.
> 
> Also, canonically, John does know his Poe – he talks about Dupin when he first meets Sherlock in A Study in Scarlet. Woohoo, trivia!


	8. Chapter 8

“There was no call from Mycroft,” Sherlock hissed, the moment that the kitchen door had closed softly behind Bunter. “I _saw_ Peter fiddle with his mobile and call you.”

“Alright,” said Bunter, composed and apparently unaffected by his blown cover story.

The resentment at having been manipulated so calmly for the better part of a day foamed over for Sherlock. “Furthermore, I am _only_ playing along with this ridiculous game because there is nothing else more interesting for me to do,” he spat.

To emphasize his irritation, he sat down forcefully on a kitchen stool and looked down his nose at Bunter as imperiously as he could manage.

“I thought,” Bunter cut in smoothly, ignoring Sherlock’s attitude, “That the goal of this farce was to have John Watson alone with Peter. Which, if you notice, they now are.”

“Yes, which is why I’m in your kitchen and _not_ on my way out the front door. Not to mention the goal of discovering the fate of thousands of pounds’ worth of emeralds,” Sherlock replied acidly, straightening his suit front to show that he was serious.

A charged silence fell between the two men, each wordlessly challenging the other to break it first. Sherlock reflected on what Bunter had said: was getting Peter and John together in a room really his goal? As much as he hated to admit it, beyond getting the two of them to meet, he hadn’t envisioned what would happen next. It was a black box that he had no control over, with some sort of resolution at the other end.

Sherlock wondered if John would ever forgive him for intruding into his life like this. It had seemed so straightforward yesterday: John’s worsened nightmares had led to a question to which Sherlock could provide part of the answer. Why withhold that information? Now, having spent time actually thinking through the logic of his irrational and emotional attempt to fix all of John’s problems, he knew that he had been both foolish and reckless; that sentiment had spoiled his rationality the way that sand gummed up a precise and delicate machine. Perhaps handing John the answer to his question (which Sherlock hated to admit that he only knew vaguely as: Who is Peter Wimsey?) was wrong. John was more than capable of handling his own problems. John was a doctor – if he needed treatment, he would know when to seek it.

And yet…

Now that his logic had been contaminated with emotion, Sherlock had to acknowledge its existence in the equation. His mind tried to illustrate it as a chemical reaction:

“John Watson + Sherlock Holmes + PTSD + Peter Wimsey + Emotion” would be the reactants, he decided. The products were what he was unsure of. Certainly, all of the people would still exist (unlikely that anyone would resort to murder). Unlikely, too, that the emotions or the PTSD would go away completely. If the products would be the same, then something about their states must alter.

Bunter dragged a kitchen stool to the other side of the table and sat down, facing Sherlock. Sherlock, deep into his pseudo-chemical reaction, did not react.

It would have to be the charges that changed, Sherlock decided. Everything would have a positive, negative, or neutral charge. His mind floundered, though, at assigning the charges. Unlike with chemistry, there was no table to memorize; no list of facts to consult. PTSD should have a negative charge, certainly, but what of emotions? And what of John? Positive to even more positive? Neutral to positive? I small icy finger of fear slid down Sherlock’s spine – _what if John’s charge became more negative?_ Could it go the other way?

 Perhaps stupidly, but at the very least irrationally, he fixated on the hope that the reaction would make John’s charge more positive and the PTSD’s more negative. Everything else could stay neutral; perhaps the mere presence of Peter would be enough to change the two charges. Things like that happened in chemistry – he’d seen it. It felt ridiculous to have a one-sided bargaining session with chemistry ( _you can’t bargain with a non-entity, Sherlock,_ he chided himself) in this way, but what power was there higher than the elements that created life? It was the same as people who, on their deathbed, tried to bargain with God.

Sherlock was able to marginally comfort himself at having stooped so low by the fact that he, at least, had proof that chemistry existed.

“I respect you,” Bunter said suddenly, jolting Sherlock out of his thoughts. Sherlock stared across the dimly lit kitchen in surprise. Horrified, he realized that he hadn’t noticed Bunter sit down, so deep was he in his thoughts.

“What?”

“I respect what you’re doing for him,” Bunter repeated slowly, choosing each word with great care. His eyes were fixed on Sherlock.

“Which is the only reason,” he continued bluntly and at normal speed, “That I’ve allowed this to happen.”

Sherlock swallowed his instinctive sarcastic reply over who-precisely-was-allowing-what to see where Bunter would take his thoughts. When Bunter did not continue speaking, though, he offered, “Thank you, I suppose?”

Bunter nodded in acknowledgement.

_Where did Bunter belong in the equation?_

Sherlock stared closely at Bunter for the second time that day, taking in the lines on his face, his posture, and everything that he’d done that afternoon. “You’ve known Peter…twenty years,” he said, exploring how open Bunter might be about his life with Peter.

“Eighteen, actually.”

Sherlock nodded, confirming his earlier hypothesis. “So Bosnia _was_ your first assignment.”

“Yes,” Bunter agreed. “Your brother chose me to train him on how to assume the guise of a military officer.”

“And you started working for Mycroft…”

“Two years later.”

“And never on an individual basis?”

“No,” Bunter agreed, with an odd half smile.

Sherlock quite unexpectedly felt his mouth mirror Bunter’s.

_A catalyst. Perhaps an enzyme. Something that encourages Peter would fit._

“Today has been his best day in six months, you know,” Bunter said quietly.

“It can’t have been easy.” Sherlock was rather taken aback by this divulgence of information about Peter.

“No,” Bunter agreed simply.

“Suicidal thoughts must have been difficult.” Sherlock uneasily wondered if John had ever considered suicide. Somehow, Sherlock’s brain provided him with the information that John was not the sort to actually commit suicide, but the little voice – the one that broken free of rationality and tried to make a bargain with chemistry – whispered that Sherlock couldn’t know everything. He couldn’t know _everything_ about John. Sherlock shook his head to silence the voice.

Bunter’s eyes narrowed as he tried to determine how Sherlock had known this intensely private information. “Ah,” he said with a flash of clarity. “The books. Of course.”

“Durkheim, Kahneman, and Donne – not particularly difficult to sort out the unifying theme.” Sherlock shrugged. The little voice of doubt stayed quiet, knowing that it had never seen such obvious literary evidence around the flat or even in John’s internet history.

Bunter looked profoundly uncomfortable at this reminder that Peter’s thoughts were so focused on death – both the deaths of others and his own. Sherlock wondered how they had managed to make it through difficult and dangerous diplomatic missions without encountering this until now. What had been so different about Afghanistan?

“How have you done it?” Sherlock asked, referring back to Bunter’s admission of how difficult the last six months had been.

“Slowly,” Bunter responded. “Patiently.”

Sherlock fought down the impulse to roll his eyes at the vagueness of the answer.

“I have tried to create normality in a world in which none exists,” Bunter explained cautiously. “But there is nothing I can do except to be as supportive as he wants me to be.”

“That’s not especially productive,” Sherlock posited.

“It’s not a science,” Bunter shrugged. “It’s an art form that changes day to day and, as I’m sure you’re very well aware, is different for every person. And while your methods of support are wildly unconventional to say the least, I respect you for actively seeking potential sources of assistance even though they may be of no help whatsoever.”

Sherlock nodded with feeling, rather pleased that Bunter didn’t think that he had miscalculated and overstepped. The fact, though, that Bunter called this process an art rather than a science was disconcerting. Margins of error he could deal with, but complete unpredictability outside of the comforts of science was terrifying. What if his proposed equation didn’t even exist? The little voice of doubt sang with glee. No matter, the most stringently rational part of his brain insisted, art _was_ science: pigments are chemicals, what the eye considers pleasing is a neurological construct, etc. How could it not be a science?

“Furthermore, it seems to me that you have yet to fully accept that you cannot solve his problems for him; they are his and his alone. But I respect,” Bunter’s suddenly and quite unexpectedly thick voice cut off the competing voices in Sherlock’s head, “what you are trying to do.”

“Thank you,” said Sherlock.

This time, he was sincere. And, for now, until he could disprove its existence, his equation would stay. Rationality shouted down the doubt.

 _Peter Wimsey-ase,_ he thought, _would be a suitable name for Bunter’s enzyme._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from grad school purgatory at last!
> 
> The books that Peter has been reading recently are all real: Durkheim’s On Suicide, Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, and Donne’s Biathanatos. I’d say that Sherlock’s analysis of what the combination of them might indicate is spot on, particularly keeping in mind his previous deduction that Peter was uncomfortable giving orders and that Bunter had learned how to respond to unasked requests.


	9. Chapter 9

“Is he always liked this?” Peter asked brightly, peering inquisitively at John.

John felt as though he were back in the car park on the night that he’d met Mycroft for the first time. Peter seemed so open and yet so manipulative. John decided to act as he’d done with Mycroft and took the offensive:

“No, see, usually you’re not here,” John shot back sarcastically.

Peter laughed delightedly which only made John extra wary. “I will be here, there and everywhere,” he said in a sing-song voice.

 _He’s lost it_ , John thought. _Absolutely mental_.

But then the words and the voice connected in his mind. “Hang on, was that the Beatles?”

Peter nodded and grinned from the depths of his armchair, pleased at John’s recognition of the song.

“Shakespeare to the Beatles? That’s a bit of a leap, wouldn’t you say?”

Peter grinned mischievously while still curled up, creating an image uncannily like the Cheshire Cat. “Well they _are_ bigger than Jesus, you know. I’d say it’s perfectly alright to skip from one great to the next. Peak to peak, skip the valleys.”

Although Peter didn’t move, John had the impression that he was patting himself on the back for his own cleverness. “Do you have a reference for everything?” he asked out of both curiosity and slight hopelessness.

“Oh, absolutely – it saves me the effort having to think up original thoughts if I can just borrow someone else’s. Rather neat, don’t you think?”

John shook his head in utter disbelief. Trying to talk with Peter was even more exhausting and frustrating than talking to Sherlock when he was in a mood. Peter seemed to notice John’s frustration, and asked politely, all of the smug cleverness leaving his tone and face, “So, Afghanistan, was it?”

“Come again?” Somewhat in shock by the complete change of topic, John wasn’t sure he’d heard Peter correctly. He’d sounded as though he could have been making small-talk at a dull office party.

“Oh no,” Peter said, all of the humor and coyness back in his voice again, shaking his finger at John. “You’re the one who correctly identified Bunter and me from our time there. _You_ have the honor of asking the questions. I wouldn’t _dare_ presume to know what you might be wondering. That’s what keeps me on my toes, you know,” he said in an impression of sharing a secret with the entire audience from the stage.

“Know thy enemy is all very well and good until you know ‘em wrong and they bite you,” he mused. “Metaphorically, of course, although I once know this one chap who had spent time down in the Amazon…” Peter trailed off, looking rather wistful.

“Am I your enemy, then?” John asked dryly, ignoring the cannibalistic red herring in Peter’s final sentence. Now that he’d had practice, it was a little easier to sort through the verbiage that Peter threw about and pull out the important bits.

“Well, _that_ will depend on what you ask,” Peter replied easily, steepling his fingers and peering at John over them.

“You’re not a military officer, for starters,” John began confidently.

Peter shook his head almost ruefully and teased, “Not a question, I’m afraid, but full marks for both originality in punctuation and observation.”

John’s ego smarted a little. “Alright, _Major_ Wimsey. Did Mycroft loan you the rank or was it rightfully earned?”

“Well,” Wimsey paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts. “It was certainly _earned_. Square of the hypotenuse and all that, though I don’t think I earned it in all the _right_ ways. Bunter, on the other hand, is not only fully deserving of his rank but also largely responsible for mine as well.”

“So, no,” John clarified.

“No,” Peter agreed. When John didn’t immediately respond, Peter asked, grinning hopefully, “Don’t you want the rest of that story? It’s one of my better ones, you know. A rare vintage, suitable for impressing one’s future in-laws at Christmas or for minor European royalty.”

“What is it exactly that you do for Mycroft?” John asked, feeling slightly peeved at the fact that Peter still seemed to be laughing constantly at private jokes with himself.

“I talk,” said Peter simply. “And I’m rather good at it, if I may say so. I am surprisingly adept at the Smiley-Armadillo method and Mycroft has put this and my many other talents to good use.”

“Yeah, including modesty, apparently.”

The words left his mouth before he could think about their impact. Peter chuckled half-heartedly, but the humor in his face and voice seemed to instantly evaporate. Even his posture seemed to deflate as he slumped backwards into his armchair.

John considered that he finally might have gone too far, though he didn’t know why. Perhaps treating Peter like Mycroft hadn’t been quite the right way to go. Peter’s face was curiously without expression, though he evoked a sense of bone-deep exhaustion that hadn’t been present before. A small bubble of concern for Peter grew in John’s chest.

“Alright, so how did the voice of Britain become a military officer stationed in Afghanistan?” John asked calmly, trying to get back to the original subject of their conversation and to bring the effusive-Peter back.

Peter perked up slightly much to John’s relief. “Ah, John, don’t even limit your imagination. It’s the only thing that ever lets us know anything new. Come now, I talk to many people in many guises.” Peter’s face fell back out of animation and he became pensively still again.

“You’re a spy,” John said involuntarily and with some trepidation. He felt suddenly much less secure of his personal privacy now that he knew that Mycroft actually _did_ run a spy ring. When had his life turned into the plot of a cheap thriller novel?

“It’s the oldest question of all, George, who can spy on the spies?” Peter replied softly, apparently able to read John’s thoughts. “Though, honestly, I’d call myself more of a supervisor. Gives me a sense of importance without over-inflating my already near-bursting ego.” Peter cracked a crooked smile, which looked rather sad as the rest of his face remained drained of expression.

“I didn’t know you were such a fan of Le Carre,” John observed, slightly uncomfortable and slightly more concerned. “Seems like older books would be more your line.” He waved his hand vaguely to his side, indicating the many shelves of ancient books that lined the walls.  

“Yes, and it is amazing how themes carry on through time. The Romans thought Odysseus was dishonorable for the same reasons the Greeks revered him. Ignoble deceit or cunning intelligence? Humans.” The speech had the ring of effusive-Peter about it, but it sounded hollow as though his heart wasn’t really in it.

“So you were overseeing people in Afghanistan?” John asked, trying to guide the conversation back on topic.

“A program, yes.”

John felt his stomach clench in dread as he asked his next question: “That wasn’t why the attack happened, was it?”

Peter sighed wearily and slumped a little further back in the armchair. “No.”

“Alright, then.” John was quiet, unsure of what to ask next. Perhaps he shouldn’t have kept asking about Afghanistan.

Peter picked up one of the small books on the end table next to him and fiddled with it.

“It is my fault, though,” Peter nearly whispered, as though making a confession.

“No it wasn’t,” John said, automatically soothing.

“John, please.”

“An attack in a warzone between two combatants isn’t your fault,” John pointed out logically.

“This one is.”

“There is _no_ possible way that this can be blamed on you,” John said with a comforting smile.

“The helicopter was mine.”

“…sorry?” John was suddenly very confused and deeply worried about Peter. His eyes were closed tightly, as though the dim light of the room was overwhelming his senses. His face was drawn and colorless, he seemed to be holding his breath, and his hands were gripping the slim book far too tightly. To John, it seemed as though he were having an anxiety attack.

“I flew too high,” Peter gasped painfully, eyes screwed shut.

John knew perfectly well that Peter hadn’t been flying the helicopter. From what he’d heard from his mates, Peter had been _under_ the helicopter rather than _in_ it. This was not the time, however, to argue facts.

“Can I get you something? Bunter?” John started to stand up, wanting to give Peter privacy, but Peter’s plaintive response made him freeze.

“Doesn’t this happen to you, too?” he cried.  

“Does what happen to me?” John asked gently, still concerned about what he should be doing for Peter. A comforting hand on his shoulder was John’s instinctive response, but he also knew that not everyone responded well to touch. Memories of waking up from panicked dreams with nurses trying to calm him swam forward into his consciousness and John fought hard to tamp them back down. Now was not the time.

Peter was breathing deeply, as though trying to calm himself and rid his system of excess adrenalin: a good sign. John noticed that his own breathing had increased – a sympathetic response? The feeling of swallowing sand began to creep down his throat and his mouth turned suddenly slightly sour with adrenalin.  John bit his lip hard to ground himself in reality and in the present, where Peter was having an anxiety attack and might need someone. He swallowed hard and the sand receded.

 “You’re a doctor,” Peter said after an exhale, his eyes still closed.

“Yes, I am,” John agreed hesitantly, wondering where Peter was going with that thought. He swallowed again experimentally: no sand.

“How do you live…” Peter inhaled deeply and released it slowly. “How do you live with the guilt?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Square of the hypotenuse and all that” = Gilbert and Sullivan’s Modern Major General.


	10. Chapter 10

With these emotions displayed, Sherlock and Bunter returned to sitting in silence. The silence this time, though, felt uncomfortable and awkward rather than tense. Although his expression remained almost stonily neutral, to Sherlock it seemed that Bunter was regretting his rather sentimental display of affection for Peter.

Speaking of Peter, what _was_ happening with John and Peter? Sherlock closed his eyes in order to better focus on his hearing, but there were no discernable sounds emanating from Peter and John in the front room.

No matter – even though Sherlock couldn’t be quite certain of the events occurring at the other end of the flat, he could make a reasonable deduction based on the facts that he already knew about John and Peter. John, of course, would be polite and respectful despite his blatant and obvious curiosity. Peter would be oblique and, for John, maddeningly evasive. John would eventually snap and ask blunt questions. Peter would answer them in a round-about sort of fashion with several references to Shakespeare (an apparent favorite) and possibly a reference to Virgil or Homer, thrown in for the added drama of antiquity.

Then, once John had his answer, they could go back to Baker Street and move on from this whole experience which Sherlock had so foolishly initiated.  Sherlock ignored his earlier hypothetical exercise into the science of John Watson and his PTSD. John had the great and singular capability to surprise him; no doubt this time he would flaunt the laws of pseudo-chemistry here and insist on a return to their supremely unordinary, exciting normal existence.

They could return to the usual routine of solving crimes and blogging about them; and of conducting scientific research between the cases. He would pick-pocket Lestrade again for John’s great amusement (even though he uprightly tried to make him return all of the identity cards to Lestrade after a few hours). Sherlock smirked in satisfaction at the thought.

The smirk vanished as Sherlock thought of the interruption to his idyllic existence with John. John had been just fine until those “Army mates” – Sherlock’s mind added the quotation marks and his lips involuntarily pursed in disgust – had barged into their lives. Surely, surely a return to their life before that pub night would be what John would want.

Having reached this conclusion, Sherlock turned his focus back to his surroundings. Bunter was putting his Army discipline on good display. Though sitting on a backless stool, his spine was straight and he did not fidget. Based on the set of his jaw, he still seemed to be brooding, though.

A bell sounded sharply, shattering the silence. Sherlock whipped his head around to find the speaker that it was emanating from (he cursed himself for not having examined the walls and ceilings more thoroughly when he first entered the kitchen). Bunter’s spine somehow straightened even more as he stood up quickly from his stool.

Sherlock stared up at the ceiling and found what he was looking for: there was a discreet digital speaker nestled in the shadow of the modern light fixture. It was clearly picking up a signal from inside the flat – Peter must have had a button stashed somewhere on his person; there hadn’t been one mounted anywhere in the front room.

“Come along,” said Bunter tersely.

Sherlock pulled his gaze from the still-ringing speaker and took in Bunter’s squared shoulders and the look of grim determination on his face. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he knew: something had just gone horribly wrong with John. And Peter.

\--

“The guilt?” John asked gently, sitting back down.

Peter opened his eyes wearily. “The guilt of not being able to save them. You know what I mean? Maybe it’s a mistake or maybe it’s an oversight, but those patients who die at your hand…” Peter took a deep breath and released it slowly. “How do you keep going knowing that what happened to them was your fault?”

Comprehension eluded John, but he tried to answer the question as best as he could:

“I…I don’t know how to explain it. You can’t let it consume you, though, or else you can’t do anything.”

Peter smiled weakly. “I fear that I’ve already done too much.”

There was silence as John wanted to allow Peter space in case he wanted to talk more about his guilty feelings.

He did.

“My nephew – I call him St. George – flies helicopters like the one that crashed, you know. I was the one who ordered the helicopters to respond to the attack – it was a response strategy that we were, pardon the pun, piloting.” Peter inhaled sharply, as though he were suddenly oxygen-starved.

John nodded in a way that he hoped was encouraging, understanding and a little sympathetic.

“I wasn’t s’posed to be outside, but I saw the bomb launch at a helicopter and all I could see was St. George dead on my orders. I don’t…I don’t even remember running outside – though I know I did. I couldn’t have done anything even if it _had_ been St. George.”

John felt suddenly a little hollow at the magnitude of Peter’s suffering.

Peter laughed, shaky and slightly bitter. “Turns out St. George was fine! Off-duty and on the other side of the base, wouldn’t you know. But now in my _copious_ recovery time, I have remembered every order I’ve ever issued and I have to wonder: how many others did I sentence to die?”

Peter’s voice broke, “And how had I never asked myself that question before?” He raised a hand to surreptitiously wipe the tears that had welled up in his eyes.

John bit his lip, deeply aware that he needed to respond and equally aware that he actually had no idea what the right response would be. “You know, I’m really not a therapist,” he started somewhat awkwardly. “And I really don’t feel comfortable advocating it to everyone, but, um, have you talked to anyone about all this?” he finished weakly.

“No,” Peter said flatly.

John tried again: “Is there anything _I_ can do for you? Do you want me to get Bunter?”  

“Oh, Bunter,” Peter sighed, his eyes slightly red but dry again. “He was the one who saved me. Did you know that?”

John nodded. “I heard he pulled you out?”

Peter’s breathing had returned to a nearly normal rate, but there was a faraway look in his eyes. He was staring in John’s direction, but seemed to be looking past him.

“He was shouting my name,” mused Peter, sounding surprised, as though he were remembering it for the first time. “I couldn’t see. I…I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know which way was up or down. But I could hear his voice.”

Peter suddenly snapped back into the present and addressed John, “It’s funny how memory works. Isn’t it strange how it all seems to be there, but some things are stuck on repeat forever and others are just hidden away until the right things tease them out?”

“Yes,” John agreed with some feeling, remembering how his dream would repeat itself every night like a crap day-time tv film.

“But, to answer your question: No, not right now.”

Peter drummed his fingers absently on the upholstered arm of his chair and his eyes slipped slightly out of focus again as, John surmised, he became lost in thought.

Rage at his utter helplessness bubbled up in John’s throat bitterly. Perhaps it was unwarranted: Peter wasn’t his patient or even his friend. They’d only just met today, after all. But seeing someone so obviously capable and brilliant so affected by his experiences made John clench his fists in suppressed frustration. There was so little that he could do – and even less that he _should_ do – but standing by and simply watching someone suffer in a similar (John could only assume it was similar, though probably more extensive) manner to the way that he had made him feel utterly useless.

He couldn’t even go get Bunter, for Christ’s sake.

Furthermore, Peter worked for Mycroft. Did whatever top secret spy agency they worked in not believe in therapists for people who had served in traumatic combat zones? Hell, even the army did now.  

“I should apologize,” Peter said briskly and quite suddenly, in tones very close to his normal voice and inflection. “This was really supposed to be about you, rather than my own tales of woe.”

“It’s quite alright,” John replied hastily. “But what do you mean?”

“Sherlock, with the blessings of Brother Mycroft, said that you had questions about who I was and what I was doing in Afghanistan in order to help you sort through some PTSD of your own. And, of course, I’ve gone and completely spoiled that by exposing you to mine instead,” Peter added sardonically. His face had regained expression and the suggestion of vibrancy, though it seemed rather forced.

John was suddenly aware that his mouth was hanging open in shock, rather like a paralyzed fish.

“He…he told you that?” John managed to choke out.

“More or less,” Peter said noncommittally and rather evasively.

It was supremely ironic, John thought furiously, that just as he’d been contemplating stepping in to meddle in Peter’s personal affairs, Sherlock had been meddling in his.

The vibrant mask slipped a little from Peter’s face, and pure exhaustion shone through. “Perhaps,” Peter said quietly, “We could continue at another time? I’m feeling pretty done in.”

“Of course,” John replied automatically, not really listening.

Peter fished in his pocket and pulled out a small gray plastic box with a white button on it. “I’ll ring Bunter. Would you…” Peter’s voice trailed off and he flapped his hand from side to side.

“Sorry?” John said, unable to understand the sign language.

“The curtains,” Peter said tersely.

“Oh,” John looked across the room at the drawn curtains. “Open them?”

Peter nodded and pressed the plastic button heavily with his thumb as John threw back the curtains to flood the room with the last of the weak sunshine. 


	11. Chapter 11

Bunter took immediate control of the situation and bundled John and Sherlock out of the flat so quickly and efficiently that to John it seemed to have happened in a complete blur. Sherlock had hailed a cab which had – amazingly – appeared almost as soon as they’d stepped onto the pavement. They settled into it in a muddle of arms, legs, and Sherlock’s obscenely heavy coat. A further blur.

John fought, shaking his leg more forcefully than necessary, but finally managed to extricate his leg from the hem of Sherlock’s coat. He struggled up against the cab door, putting as much physical space between himself and Sherlock as possible. Once the cabbie seemed distracted enough with negotiating traffic, he before snarled quietly to Sherlock, “I ought to kill you.”

Fancifully, Sherlock imagined that his heart had actually skipped a beat. _So much for eliminating death from the equation_ , he thought rather ruefully. Then, _So much for not following the equation._ The little voice of emotional doubt began chanting “You were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong!” as two hypotheses about his proposed equation for his actions was disproved.

Sherlock frowned. “Understandable.” John had been expressing signs of anger ever since he and Bunter had been summoned back from the kitchen; his words were only a brief manifestation of that anger.  

“Really, Sherlock? Do you actually understand why?” John was furious, “Because I really don’t think you do. Messing about in my private life? Trying to interpret my dreams? How the fuck did you even know about Peter and Bunter?”

Sherlock stayed quiet, deciding it was safer to let John blow the anger out of his system.

“I’m sure you didn’t talk to my mates – they’d have told me. So, what? Did you guess?” John laughed slightly manically, “No! You wouldn’t stoop to guessing. Oh. Oh. My computer. Of course. You went through my internet history didn’t you?”

“If you didn’t want me to, you could change the password,” Sherlock pointed out, logically.

“Like that would stop you,” John scoffed, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

 _A fair point_ , Sherlock thought.

John glared out of the cab’s window, seething. Sherlock felt quite suddenly that the little space that John had forced between them was suddenly a massive chasm.

“What do you want me to say?” Sherlock asked the back of John’s head. He kept the touch of anxiety that John’s anger might actually not be all that fleeting out of his voice.

John was silent for several moments more. “Nothing,” he finally said, still looking out of the window. “I don’t really feel like talking to you right now.”

Sherlock nodded, feeling the icy finger of doubt slip under his collar. It seemed as though the situation was heading horribly away from a return to normality and instead towards John-not-forgiving-Sherlock. Sherlock suppressed a shiver and then frowned – why was he shivering? It really wasn’t cold and – he quickly inventoried his observable vital signs – he wasn’t ill.

 _Ah, emotion_ , Sherlock thought with a flash of clarity. It was the only new element in his existence. Sentimentality was making him ill: first his heartbeat and then the regulation of his body temperature.

 _Yet another reason to distrust it_ , Sherlock thought sourly as he slumped into his side of the cab.

They sat in silence for the remainder of the ride back to Baker Street.

\--

John made a show of marching upstairs and shutting the door to his room, but his heart was only half in it.

Part of him was absolutely blindingly furious with Sherlock. He could feel the white rage edging into the corners of his vision, eating into his peripherals. He sat down on his bed, unthinkingly rocking back and forth and clenching and unclenching his fists.

Hot sand scratched the back of his throat and he could taste the bitterness of the adrenalin on his tongue – a delayed reaction from being a witness to Peter’s episode, he thought rationally - if wildly. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing:

_In and out._

_In and out._

His body started to slow down. First the rocking stopped, then his hands relaxed and his palms went limp against the duvet.

_In and out._

The adrenalin taste started to fade and the sand receded again. John hunched over and rested his forehead against his knees, hyper-aware of every breath as his body struggled to fill his lungs while his chest cavity was practically folded in half. John knew that he should be sitting up straight or lying down – basically, in any position that allowed him to continue breathing deeply until he had returned to normal. But he was too tired.

He felt so drained and sitting up again required energy that he simply couldn’t summon. He should be mad at Sherlock – fuck it, he should be _furious_ with Sherlock for thinking that he understood PTSD and knew how to fix it – but that felt like it would take too much energy too.

With what felt like the final reserve of energy, John shifted sideways slightly and pulled his legs up onto his bed so that he could curl into the fetal position. There seemed to be a huge black weight behind his eyes; keeping them open ached. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt the weight settle firmly at the top of his skull, pressing out against his forehead. He felt pathetic.

The part of him that had wanted to reach out and do _something_ for Peter felt a great empathy with Sherlock. On the surface, it looks so easy to fix things and yet – as the rest of him knew so intimately – there really was no ultimate fix. There were coping mechanisms and improvements, but it never went away. There was always a shadow somewhere in the brain – sometimes it was darker and sometimes it dissipated, but it was always there.

John felt cold and unsuccessfully suppressed a shiver, wishing that he’d managed to collapse under the duvet rather than on top of it.

He understood – he really did – where Sherlock’s apparent good intentions (poorly implemented) came from. For John, it was instinctive when someone was suffering to want to lessen that suffering. John’s mouth cracked into a small smile – it was touching to think that Sherlock really did care enough to try to intervene on his behalf.

Bizarrely, the thought that Sherlock cared felt tangible, like a solid, warm thing that John could hold in his hands. Curling more tightly into the fetal position, John wrapped his body around the thought and burrowed his face into the duvet. Black velvet sleep descended and enclosed him comfortingly.

His sleep was peaceful and dreamless.

\--

Sherlock sat in his armchair unsure of what to do. They had fallen into the one hypothesized situation in which John was angry, stayed angry, and didn’t forgive Sherlock.

The last two, of course, Sherlock had to chide himself, were only conjecture. Only the first criterion – John is angry – had been filled. His brain, however masochistically, could not resist extrapolating the worst possible next steps.

There was nothing really that Sherlock could do until John left his room. Any attempt to interrupt would only make John angrier and the hypothesized lack of forgiveness inevitable. Sherlock picked up his bow with the vague notion of composing as a distraction. He put it down again after a moment with the sudden thought that the noise might only make John more furious with him.

Maybe he should make him tea. John liked tea. Sherlock jumped up and snatched a clean mug from the drain, only to freeze. He couldn’t go upstairs. John needed to be the one to make the next move. It was like playing a game and waiting for the other player to consider their only two moves for a ridiculous amount of time.

John was either going to forgive him or – Sherlock clenched the mug’s handle – he wasn’t. Sherlock left the mug next to the kettle (it had even been a _clean_ mug) and went back to his chair. Perhaps he should read something. Scanning the bookshelves, nothing caught his eye. Not even the new edition of The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. There was a particularly fascinating article on colchicine poisoning in it that he’d been intending to read and potentially apply to one of Lestrade’s cold cases.

Giving the article a second thought, he picked up the journal and flopped into his chair. Halfway through the case report, he let the journal flip shut in disgust. Not even the temptation to help acquit a doctor of malpractice (wouldn’t John like that) could persuade him to finish the article. He couldn’t focus on anything but John.

With great disregard, he tossed the journal across the room. It slid under the couch and hit the wall with a thud. Now free of distractions, Sherlock tucked his legs underneath him and curled up into his chair to stew and wait for John to come back downstairs.

Time passed agonizingly slowly and, for Sherlock, with increasing anxiety. John could hold out all night if he was angry enough. Sherlock wondered how his body would cope with experiencing an extended amount of high stress. Short bursts of stress were energizing, but over the long term, it just made him feel somewhat sick. Arguably, he knew all of that – he’d read the medical studies – but somehow he’d never thought that it would apply to himself.

Exceptional, but not exceptional enough, it seemed, as John still did not make an appearance. Sherlock sighed deeply and rested his head awkwardly on his shoulder and the back of his chair. Disappointment and dread settled onto him, uncomfortably hot and heavy. Eventually, against his will, he drifted into a restless sleep.

\--

John woke with his face buried in the duvet. He blinked in the semi-darkness of the room, trying to get his bearings. He hadn’t even realized that he’d fallen asleep. What a day.

His headache seemed to have been cured by sleep and he cautiously sat up: no problems. He breathed deeply in relief and gratitude. The weight that had previously been in his head rolled down his throat and settled queasily in his stomach. What was he supposed to do with Sherlock?

It felt unfair to be mad at good intentions no matter how poorly they had been executed. He could even forgive the invasion of his internet history – God knew it happened enough. The only thing that truly upset him still was the apparent disregard that Sherlock had for the effect that his intentions might have had on Peter. Sherlock should have been able to see that Peter was in no condition to be “helping” – if anyone, it was Peter who needed the therapy and the help.

John’s stomach flipped uncomfortably. What time was it? John fumbled around with his bedside table until his fingers located his watch. 9:30. Breakfast had been a long time ago. John stood and stretched slowly, imagining that he could actually feel the tension leaving his muscles. Slowly, he made his way down the dark stairs. Where was Sherlock? Had he gone out? The flat was silent.  

There was a single light on in the living room – Sherlock’s reading lamp. Fittingly enough, it illuminated Sherlock, who was fast asleep in his chair.

John felt a smile creep onto his face in fond exasperation. Sherlock’s head was at a ridiculous angle – somehow resting between his own shoulder and the low back of the chair. Who else could sleep like that?

“Sherlock? Wake up. You’re going to strain something.”

Sherlock jerked awake and nearly flung himself from the chair in the process. “John?” he mumbled thickly, shaking his head.

John watched in amazement as Sherlock woke up and transformed from unguarded into straight-backed and wary.

“John,” Sherlock repeated, much more clearly. “Can I get you anything? Tea?” he said quickly.

“No, don’t bother.” John sat down on the couch and stared at Sherlock, wondering how to begin.

Sherlock’s mouth twitched but he said nothing.

John stared at him. “Thank you,” he said finally.

Whatever Sherlock had been expecting, it clearly hadn’t been that. His brow furrowed and he cocked his head to the left. “For what?” he asked suspiciously, as though he thought that John might be tricking him.

“For caring.” John said simply.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.

“Look,” John explained. “I know I was mad. And I had every bloody right to be mad, mind. But,” he paused as he considered how best to phrase it.

“But I know,” he paused again for emphasis. “That you did all that to try to help me.”

Sherlock was very quiet and exceptionally still. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. Just as John was about to say something out of concern, Sherlock spoke.

“You’re not mad at me.” The words were hesitant, as though Sherlock was deducing something of such complexity that not even he was sure of what he was seeing.

“I should be furious with you!” John laughed a little ruefully. “But I really can’t be.”

“So, you forgive me?”

Sherlock looked hopeful and the sight made John’s chest constrict with the knowledge of just how much Sherlock did care and how much he must struggle to express it.

“On two conditions. The first is that you only try to help me with my consent in the future.”

Sherlock nodded. “And the second?”

“That you call your brother.” John smiled with satisfaction at the confusion that bloomed suddenly over Sherlock’s face.

“What?” he said incredulously.

“Someone needs to tell Mycroft that one of his agents might be a good candidate for an intervention of sorts,” John explained. “I don’t know if it’s therapy he needs, but I think that this might go beyond what Bunter can provide at this point.”

Sherlock sighed.

“And you owe him for what you put him through today.”

Sherlock didn’t respond.

“And me,” John added pointedly.

Sherlock pursed his lips. “Alright,” he acquiesced. He sat back in his chair, no longer stiffly balanced on the edge.

John sat back into the sofa, pleased. “Christ, I’m starved.”

“I’ll order take-away,” Sherlock said easily, with a casual wave of his hand.

“Wait, really? You will?”

“I don’t think there’s anything fit for consumption. My mold colony,” Sherlock said darkly, as though the mold had personally slighted him. “Has colonized the entire refrigerator more quickly than anticipated.”

“When did you start growing mold near the food?” John asked, horrified at the memory of eating toast that morning.

“Two weeks ago.” Sherlock winced slightly. “Bad timing, I know, but apparently it was a stronger colony than I had expected based on the quality of the specimen that I gathered it from.”

John laughed helplessly.

“John? What’s wrong?” Sherlock demanded, as John fell sideways onto the sofa in mirth.

“Mold!” John gasped between laughs. “What else should I have expected in the refrigerator?”

Sherlock relaxed finally: John was back. He was forgiven. Life could be normal again.

\--

**_Three weeks later._ **

“Any cases?” John asked from his chair as he flipped through the morning’s newspaper.

“Nothing good. There is a distinct lack of originality in crime these days,” Sherlock said with irritation.  

John snorted.

“Didn’t Lestrade want you to look into this one for his colleague?” John asked, pointing at an article in the paper headlined “Murder Trial begins for Harriet Vane”.

“The arsenic poisoning case? Boring,” Sherlock sighed dramatically. “I went through the evidence; she’s the only person who could have possibly done it.”

“Hmm,” John grunted. “Seemed like it might have been fun.”

“I’m sure that’s what Peter thinks.”

“What?” John asked, taken aback.

“I recommended to Mycroft that Peter might enjoy getting out of the house more,” Sherlock said with an air of feigned innocence. “He seemed to have so much fun on our investigation – why not let him loose to wreak havoc on the courts?”

“Mycroft is letting him investigate cases? Is that why you’re not doing this one?” John demanded, still shocked. “Does Mycroft even have that kind of power?” He wondered aloud, uncomfortably.

“Don’t be ridiculous, John. He’s just observing for a bit of fun. He can’t affect the course of justice in any meaningful way.”

“You know,” John said thoughtfully, “I had really meant that you should ask Mycroft to look into therapy or something.”

Sherlock nodded. “I know.”

John looked at Sherlock with fondness mixed with humor, touch of exasperation, and understanding before clearing his throat. “Okay,” he said, picking his paper back up. “Well, maybe something good will come along. Something else suited to your unorthodox methods.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock grunted, unconvinced.

With a glance at John to make sure that his focus was back on his paper, Sherlock pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Quickly, he composed the text:

_Reexamine the dinner with his cousin. Scotland Yard has it wrong about her._

Moments later his phone buzzed. Bunter responded,

_Got it. Peter already thinks it suspiciously perfect._

Sherlock glanced at John, who was still absorbed in whatever story he was reading, and smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yes, that’s a medical real journal and yes, that’s a real article about poisoning. It’s in the December 2013 issue.  
> 2\. For those not familiar with Lord Peter Wimsey, the case of Harriet Vane (whom he falls in love with and saves from the gallows) is told in Strong Poison. I’ve added the twist that it was Sherlock who was behind the reason for why Wimsey was sitting in court that day – Sayers opens the book with Peter observing the court’s proceedings and never does tell us why he was there in the first place. So, there you go.  
> 3\. Remember that foamy thing in the fridge with the label way back at the beginning of the story? There's your mold. The marmalade John had in the morning was sealed, though, so he should be fine.  
> 4\. Thank you all so, so much for reading. It’s been a lovely time writing two of my favorite detectives (and their companions) into a single story and I’m glad others seemed to enjoy it as well.


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